Boardwalk
by Graysi
Summary: Beck broke up with her. Indirectly. Technically he refused to open a door, but still. She got the message. They were done. And Tori's stupidly concerned about her and Ryder wants to make-up after their big ass fight last year and Cat's all angry at Beck now. It's too much. She thought they were forever. Jayder. Bade. Plus friends. A multichapter. Not that great.
1. Silence

_Hi. So this is my first multichap. And I don't like it. It has to have a stupid _ending_ and _middle_ and everything. My one-shot brain isn't used to it. I pretty much treated it like a one-shot anyway, just a whole collection of them that_ sort of_ string together that make some sort of a story. This was actually originally a one-shot that I decided to _seriously _expand. Like by 18000 words or so. :/ hmm. I'll let you know which chapter's the original. Uh... so yeah. I don't say this because it sounds insincere but thanks for reviewing. I didn't really get it 'till I started publishing stuff but it really makes you're day, if some randomer tells you they like your writing. So thank you. (_super_-sincerely)  
Also, I've sort of come to hate this story so don't judge too harshly. I'll just make out like I was wasted writing this so I'll have excuses. K.  
And once again, I've not seen the worst couple yet, (Damn Ireland broadcasting!) so a lot of this is assumptions.  
And I don't own Victorious._

* * *

She stands at the edge of the boardwalk, staring down into the dark threatening waves below, her freezing bare feet curl over the edge trying to _feel_.

It's that time of evening when everything is almost pitch black, but the sea and the beach and the boardwalk, _right_ where she stands, is lit up by the streetlights along the boardwalk, and the twinkling lights of the city, and the bonfire that someone lit on the beach.

Of course it just _had_ to happen on a night like this didn't it? On a night when the clouds looked angry enough to kill and the sea looked cunning enough to drown.  
Did she really expect any different? If Beck and her ever ended, she always knew it had to end with a _bang_. It would never simply be a '_it's not working out'_ and a '_I know'_ and that be the end of it. After all their enraged fights with furiously hurled insults, and their desperate crazed makeup sessions against the back door of her house, and their talks on the phone 'till 6a.m. and their family dramas, it could never end anything less, than what happened tonight.

Like what was happening with this storm. If the storm represented her and Beck, she thought, then it was only a matter of time until lightening stuck her where she stood. With no warning or anything. Just _bang_! Lightening strikes. And then _poof_! It's gone.

She keeps hearing those last words in her head.  
"_10. 9. 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1._" …and then that silence. The silence that she thought she might die from.  
God, it was _awful_! It was _so_ awful.  
Her hands make agonised fists and her nails dig into her palms. She wants to sing to block out that god awful _silence_ that won't stop blaring in her head, but a few seniors are messing around on the beach behind her, and she can't have them thinking she's more insane than they probably assume, after watching her stand here for half an hour now. Just staring into the black sea.

Dammit, she can hear that silence again!  
And the _look_ on his face, and his apologetic expression, which makes her know that he's serious, and this is really happening because why else would he be apologetic?  
Because he _knows_ he should be sorry, he _knows_ what this'll do to her, he _knows _that he's breaking promises. Because he still does it. And so he _looks_ sorry. The wind whips at her face, blowing her hair back and her dress cling to her as she stares into the darkness, surrounding by echoes of "_3. 2. 1."_ And silence.

And right now she'll do anything to forget what happened. _Anything._ At all.  
She'd shave her head, pull out her heart, sell her soul. …Or just jump of this pier. She'd do anything at this point to distract herself, to forget.  
So, she'd get wet, so the seniors would see, so – and suddenly his face jumps into her mind like a bullet. His beautiful, beautiful face.  
"I'm tired" he says to her. Apologetic eyes. Which say '_goodbye_' if you look closely enough.

_Dammit!_ Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck -  
She jumps.

She hears gasps and one 'oh my _God_!' before the icy violent water pulls her under.  
Her bare feet kick violently as she swims up to break the surface, and gasps trying to breathe. Not _actually_ physically breathe. Oxygen handles that fine. Just _breathe_.  
She pulls her hair back from her face, dark and heavy and is alarmed by screams from the shore.  
She turns around, the waves violently pulling her further out and under; trying to spot what was going on and staying above water at the same time. Probably the kids on the beach messing around.

She lies back in the water, ignoring their shouts, even though its roughness and iciness makes it hard to breathe steadily, and she closes her eyes just wanting to be _here_. Here, in _this _cold water_. Can you feel it Jade?_ She thinks. _Can you feel that iciness making your hands numb and your head hurt? Concentrate on it Jade, nothing else. Just the water.  
_She wants to be _here_, feeling her dress float around her like an anchor and her hair gliding heavily behind her and her body feeling like a rag doll as the waves crash over her and pull her further out to sea. She likes that phrase. '_Out to sea._' It means nowhere, and away and more importantly not here.

She just wants to be _here_, because here means being in the _sea_, and _not_ being with her bitter memories of what happened with Beck. And what will now _never_ happen with Beck.

She can hear the screams on the beach get louder and more panicked and internally rolls her eyes. Can she not forget her own name in peace please? It's weird that those seniors could be getting brutally murdered for all she knew and she seriously didn't even care.  
But their screams soothe her, because it's a nice background sound to her slow heartbreak and their panicked tone is nice because it makes her feel impossibly calm in comparison.

"_Oh my God_! Call 911! Do it Brad!"  
"Oh my God, _that's Jade West_!"  
"For God sakes Ryder, _swim_!"  
"Should I call Beck?"

Her eyes fly open when the shouts, that had merged into one sound of white noise, mention _his_ name. Or maybe they didn't and it was just _her,_ being obsessive?  
"Jade!" someone screams from the shore. "_Jaaaaaaade_!"

And suddenly arms are wrapped around her waist and she screams because someone's _actually_ here _beside_ her, interrupting her _very_ vulnerable grieving process, that, in case they didn't know, should _never_ be interrupted. And even though she'd never admit it, she's so frightened because _who the fuck is this,_ trying to drown her right now and she keeps screaming and thrashing to get away.

"Jade! Jade, _stop_!" A male voice.  
She ducks under his strong arms that are clutching her waist and sinks under the black water. He grabs onto her arm before the current rips her away and drags her to the surface, the rain starting to beat down on them.

"_Jade_!" he shouts. "Calm down. It's _me_!" She looks at him.

A silence.


	2. Bambi

_It's another chapter! Once again - I was wasted writing this. (cough cough, lol!) So I'm going to Germany tomorrow and I won't be updating in a while so here's this before I leave. Lieblinge Auf Wiedersehen... x (That might not be very grammatical btw)_

* * *

"_Jade_!" he shouts. "Calm down. It's _me_!"

"What the FUCK do you think you're doing you DICK?" she screeches facing him, waves lapping furiously against them. Oh for God sakes. Of course, like the break up with the storm, it just _had_ to be Ryder Daniels interrupting her grieving, didn't it?  
"What am_ I_ doing? What the fuck are _you_ doing?" he shouts back.  
"I'm fucking _swimming_ you idiot what does it fucking _look_ like?" she screams.  
"It _looks_ like you were staring at the water for an _hour,_ and then you fucking _jumped off_. Like you were doing something _stupid!_"

Her mouths snaps shut, cutting off her next scream.  
"What?" She looks toward the beach at the six figures screaming, two of them crashing in the water towards them and she freezes to listen.

"Ryder! For God Sakes is she okay? Bring her back!  
"Ryder!  
"_Ryyyyderrrrrrrr_!  
"There's no coverage! We can't phone a _fucking_ ambulance!"

She looks down at his hand clutching her arm and his scared expression, all the cockiness unnaturally absent in his concern for her.  
And then her mouth snaps open again as it _clicks_.  
"You thought I was committing suicide?" she states bluntly. His eyes rapidly search her face, panicking.  
"Well, you were _standing_ there for like _forty five_ minutes! You didn't even turn when I called. And then you just _jumped_ and you're hardly wearing clothes for swimming" he says, tugging at her saturated black dress. "And…when you came up… you just... lay flat. Not moving." His voice shakes.  
She blinks, not knowing what to say.

"I was just swimming" she confirms, regaining much of her blasé approach, appreciating her ability to make him squirm at his unnecessary 'superman' attempt.  
"You… _weren't_ doing anything stupid were you?" he asks, very much doubting her dismissal. She shakes her head and rolls her eyes, internally self-applauding her cool denial even though his scared tone is freaking her out and the wild waves are trying to drag her under and did his friends just say they were going to call an ambulance? Or _Beck_?  
"You promise?" he presses and she thinks, 'Yeah, because promises are just _that_ dependable.'  
"I was fucking swimming Ryder" she repeats, irritatedly.

She looks back at his friends who are running into the waves to help him.  
"You mind telling them that I'm not as emo as you think? I don't fancy getting a ride home in an ambulance" she tells him nonchalantly, but her breath is getting more and more limited and she can't feel her feet anymore.  
He nods bewilderedly, his wet hair stuck to his face, making him looks years younger and turns to face his friends, waving his hands to get their attention.

"_Hey_!" he roars. "She's okay! No, John, don't bother! I got her. Forget the ambulance."  
He turns back around to Jade, a little embarrassed of their overreaction but he's Ryder Daniels and she's Jade West so he runs his hand through his drenched hair, but in a different way that she's accustomed to. More in a happy way, than an irritated way.

"C'mon let's go, it's freezing" he shivers and she rolls her eyes.  
"I didn't _ask_ you to jump in here dude." As they swim toward the steps on the walkway. He laughs.  
"Sorry, but I swam like twenty metres in like _five_ seconds to save _your _sorry ass, and I get absolutely no thanks?"  
"Did I _ask_ you to save me? I don't _need_ fucking saving." She spits, more harshly than usual, but her breathing is ragged as she struggles to stay above the waves because she never was that great a swimmer.  
"Okay. _Sorry_." And then chuckles, looking at her struggles. "Or maybe not." And he grabs her waist again, and chin lifts her with his other hand in a rescue stroke, swimming towards the steps like a powerboat.  
"It's fine, little girl, you're in safe hands now!" He shouts at her, just so arrogantly. "Stay calm, you're almost there! Ryder's got ya."  
"Fuck off!" she screeches, but his hold is impeccable and his hands are wrapped around her hips and curved off to cup her jaw, her back pressed against his bare chest and legs kicking beneath hers. She's known Ryder for years but he's never touched her quite like this before, even if he was just being a stupid boy trying to be funny right now. She was always Beck's.

"Let me go!" she yells and he only releases his hold when he reaches the steps.  
She whips around in the water to glare at him but he just winks cheekily and climbs up the steps, his shorts dripping in water, and turns to help Jade up.  
"Piss off" she mutters but he doesn't take her protests into consideration and pulls her up by her hands until she collapses, half onto the boardwalk her head hitting the wood, and coughing.

His friends are sprinting up the boardwalk towards them, screaming her name.  
He bends down beside her after pulling her fully onto the walkway and frowns a little at her collapsed body and shaking frame.  
"Hey, you okay?" He's concerned. She nods her eyes closed.  
"Yeah. I'm just tired." No need to explain the irony _there._  
She lies there motionless, and shaking, because really, that water was _freezing_, and the waves were so rough, and the glow from the lamppost lights her up, making her look angelic in Ryder's point of view.  
Or _dead_, in the point of view of his friends, who've just arrived.

"Oh God, Ryder, is she okay?"  
Someone kneels down beside her.  
"Jade? Shit Ryder is she breathing?" Jade opens her eyes to make them _please_, shut _up_, and they gasp in relief. She sits ups _shakily_ – it probably was not the best idea to swim in the middle of the night, in a stormy sea, when you're upset and in shock she thinks – and Ryder quickly moves to sit behind her, so she's leaning against his chest, between his legs, and she really doesn't have the energy to push him away.  
"I'm fine." She verifies. "I went for a swim and _someone_," she elbows Ryder in his chest, "had to overreact."  
Chelsea Greenway looks confused.

"But …you _jumped_." She says. "You _jumped_ like you were –"  
"Going _swimming_." Jade finishes with a sigh.  
John Baker glances from Jade to Ryder uncomfortably, staring at her obviously-not-for-swimming dress.  
"You want me to call Beck for you Jade?" he offers.  
"No." she protests. "Leave him." And she doesn't say anything else, just proceeds to get to her feet, shakily, ignoring Ryder's assistance, and slowly walks past the curtain of concerned seniors, down the boardwalk and it looks to Ryder like he's watching Bambi try to walk, because she's so slow and shaky and _upset_ though he doesn't know why.

It's pretty hard to watch so he grabs her forgotten shoes and follows her to her car to make sure she's okay.


	3. Whitney

_Back from Germany and decided to post this at 4am because I'm insomniac like that. Sorry, I live in Ireland so my knowledge of American geography is severely limited so I think I used 'Bakersfield' in like every one of my stories because I know nothing else. lol. Bakersfield ftw! I hope it's nice there now or all the HA gang keep going to an awful place...I wrote that chorus of the song by the way. Copyright. It's going to blow up BIG guys. Just wait.  
And I don't own Victorious. _

* * *

"You don't have to drive me home Ryder." She mutters, irritated, from the passenger seat, Ryder's black leather jacket wrapped around her shaking shoulders.  
"On the contrary I did. Number _one_: you seem to have come here without a vehicle for some, _very _wise and well thought out reason _I'm sure_. Number two: walking home would more than likely result in the rape, mugging, murder, torture, or _decapitation_ of you." She snorts.  
"Any particular reason why I'm being targeted in this major rise in crime?"  
"Number _three_:" he continues, ignoring her. "You seem to be still very dazed by my hypnotising body and cutting good looks."  
Another snort.  
"And four: -"  
"There seem to be an awful amount of reasons why you should drive me home." She interrupts.  
"And _Four_: You seem to be upset. What's up?"  
She rolls her eyes though he's not looking. It's weird that he notices. They're bantering and he put on Whitney Houston on when he jumped in and her expression is extra reserved and angry, but still he notices. And he asks her that, so casually and… _friend-like,_ and she finds that oddly refreshing in comparison to _intense gazing_ and tight _wrist holding_ and "_Jade? Talk to me, I know when something's wrong with you._"

She shrugs, not willing to give an answer right now.  
"Just the usual" she states. "Life being a bitch." He laughs.  
"Isn't it always? Hey did I tell you what happened to me last week?" he asks with a smile in his voice and _both_ hands on the wheel and she just has to smile in response, because really, when was the last time she just had a _nice_ conversation? With anyone, not just Beck? Just a light and easy and nice conversation. It's nice she thinks, being in this heated car, with Whitney _Houston_ of all people singing in the background and the headlights lighting up the road like they're driving nowhere. Not to mention that despite his long term commitment to his '_Oh. My God, how awesome and hot am I_?' routine, he always acts like a complete dork when he's with her.

"What happened?" she asks, like it was five years ago and they were sitting in the back of his mom's Land Rover on the way to singing lessons, discussing last night's episode of American Idol.  
"Okay, so my dad comes home right? And you know my dad, always giving out about this and that and the other?"  
She nods. His dad and her dad were so close like that. He remembers that time Ryder's mom took them on a picnic on the beach when they were kids and his Dad got so mad at his mom, because according to Ryder, he didn't _believe_ in picnics, that he threw the picnic basket and his moms best china smashed at her feet.  
"Yeah. So anyway, he comes home, and this week he's giving out about my gig in Bakersfield right? And he's like, '_Ryder for God Sakes, why are you making your mother drive you two hours away to perform in a deserted coffee house in front of 8 random strangers. You're not even that good'_."  
Jade frowns, annoyed.  
"Yeah so anyway, I'm like, '_you don't have to come Dad'_. And he goes; '_you're bloody right I'm not going'._ And anyway, later I'm practising with my mom at home right? And Dad storms in and he's real angry about something else but anyway, he sees me playing, and mom looking so happy and he just _loses_ it."

Jade stares at Ryder. She knows enough about his Dad to be nervous right now.  
"And he grabs my guitar off me and starts shouting about how terrible I am right? And mom's screaming telling him to shut up, but he's still got my guitar in his hand."  
"Oh my God." Jade says "He didn't."  
"So he holds my guitar over his head –"  
"Oh no, no no!"  
"..and smashes it into the table to shut her up."  
"Holy _shit!"_ Jade hisses.  
"Yeah. And my guitar was smashed in half and everything, and her table lost a leg, but the best part now is, she's making him buy me a new guitar. And plus, she gets a new table."  
Jade blinks seethingly.  
"The fucking bastard!" she hisses furiously.  
"Yeah, I know. But I really don't mind because it's gonna cost him like over a grand now."  
"But you _loved _that guitar." She protests, upset.  
"Yeah. She was a good girl. But it was her time."

She laughs at his relaxed attitude, like the death of his greatest love was just something that _happens. _Nothing like this ever bothers Ryder. Not even secretly.  
"Remember the day you got her? And you just _had_ to come over to mine to play for me even though you were like, the _worst_ guitarist in the world."  
"Hey!" he protests, smiling. "I wrote you a fucking _love_ song. Show some respect bitch."  
"It had _two_ chords and the chorus was made up of a like three lines repeated over and over." He burst out laughing and the sound was so happy and carefree and so 'dorky Ryder' that she laughed too.  
"Oh God I remember. How did it go again? 'Baby you're my soul mate, I'll never do you wrong, but I can't let you leeeeave without this song'" he sang and then laughed, snorting a bit at the embarrassment of it all, though Ryder never gets embarrassed.  
"Worst song _ever_." She insists.  
"It had _feeling_ and _passion_!" he argues.  
"It was written in three minutes and there was more '_babys_' in it than there's terrible actors in Full House." He shakes his head like he's hurt.  
"Harsh words Jayjay."  
"Fuck you." She smiles, because he's grinning cheekily, knowing how much she hates that stupid nickname.

"Home sweet home" he states sarcastically, pulling up at her driveway, like he's done so many times before.  
She pulls off her jacket and hands it to him but he just takes it and wraps it around her again.  
"You're absolutely frozen Jade. Give it to me whenever." So she keeps it.  
"Thanks for the ride. And acting like a douche in front of your friends just to amuse me."  
"No problem" he smiles. She shakes her head and says quietly:  
"I can't believe that you actually thought I was trying to kill myself."

He looks down at his knees, his wet black hair greased back from his face and his skin white with cold, the humour suddenly disappearing from his face.  
"Yeah. You seriously frightened the shit outta me. I dunno, I thought your stupid boyfriend must have finally shown his true colours and broke your heart. Or your dad might have said something terrible to you. Or maybe your mom did something stupid." He shrugs. "Sorry. I overreacted but seriously, you really know how to give a guy a heart attack." He smiles up at her but she's frowning over something he said.  
"Okay let me just get one thing straight Ryder Daniels. While all those things are very accurate portrayals, they're not going to make me kill myself, got it?" she states threateningly. "And Beck isn't capable of _breaking my heart_. Okay? I'm not 'that' _girl_."  
"Sure you're not. But you sure as hell love him, like I've never seen. And he sure as hell is some kind of tool."  
"I don't." He shrugs as if to say, 'your call Jade. Just telling it how I see it' and she hates it.

"It was nice to talk to you today Jade. I haven't seen you in a while." He says after a moment of silence and glares and unwavering smiles. But she nods. Ryder was just so… easy to be around. That's what they were. Easy. She had forgotten.  
"Yeah. I don't really know why we stopped talking there."  
"Uh... I do. It was the day that you walked over to my house to scream at me for like, 10 minutes non-stop about being a bastard to Tori." Her mouth snaps open and her eyes narrow.  
"Oh yeah. I forgot that. ..Well you deserved it you dick." She looks at him with disgust.  
"Yeah. I know, I'm sorry. That was just me being an asshole. You know me, Jade, that's not me."  
"I thought it wasn't."  
"Look, that was like a year ago. When my ego was just running the show okay? You know something you said, well, _screamed_ at me that day, made me stop being like that. You know what it was?" She shrugs, still with an indifferent gaze.

"You told me that I was being _such_ a bitch that you didn't want to see me again. Or touch me or talk to me or even _think_ about me." He airquoted. "And you said it was because I reminded you of my father." He nodded intently. "Of _my_ father. I was acting like _him_. So I stopped being such a dick because I'd rather be dead, than you comparing me to him. …So I'm just real glad you forgive me Jade."


	4. Sleepover

_I don't own Victorious. _

* * *

She raises an eyebrow.  
"Who says I forgive you?"  
"Woah! You can still do that eye thing! I forgot. …Yeah well you're talking to me tonight for like the first time in a year. I guess I thought you were over it now."  
"Well you assumed wrong. Once a bitch, always a bitch."  
He looks at her, his face crestfallen for a moment. But then a cheeky grin pulls up.

"Nah, you forgive me."  
"Do not."  
"Yeah, you do!"  
"I don't think so."  
"You _so_ do!" and he leaps up and attacks her weak spot – her underarms. She screams and immediately drops onto the floor of the car, trying to escape.  
"Ryder! You bastard _stop_!" He chuckles, jumping over to take her unoccupied seat to enclose her little alcove which she somehow folded herself up in.  
"Say you forgive me." He orders, ticking harder.  
"You fuck! Stop! _Ryder_, you bitch – oh my god! _Don't_!"  
"Say it" he threatens pushing her further into the whole, under the glove compartment, laughing at her dorkiness.  
"Fuck _you_!"  
"Who do you forgive?"  
"_No_!"  
"Who?" he shouts, laughing at her feebly and frantic slaps to his hands.  
"Fine! I forgive you!"

He releases her.  
"You bitch. Let me up." And he pulls the seat back and opens his legs so she can wriggle out and land on the edge of the seat in front of him, fixing her hair and making sure to give his chest a nice _whack_ with her elbow.  
"Aw I knew you couldn't stay mad at me Jayjay" he coos, wrapping his arms around her 'till she shrugs him off.  
"Bitch." This was typical Ryder behaviour, that she'd become accustomed to since she was eight years old but she thinks it's weird that he'd never act like that in public. It was just with her.

"…hey Jade?" he asks with a bothered tone.  
"What?" she's still pissed.  
"Where's your mom?" She turns around to face him and then follows his gaze up to her house, which is dark and lifeless and has no Toyota filling up the driveway and it's already eleven. She shrugs.  
"Gone." He grabs her arm making her face his shocked expression.  
"Gone? As in... permanent?" She sighs, looking away.  
"I doubt it. She'll come back in a few weeks. You know what she's like."

He nods. He _did_ know. He knew it whenever they'd go out to see Hamlet in the theatre or days to the beach to swim around the caves and she'd open the door of her house when he'd pick her up and she'd have that _expression_ on. The expression that said 'Hey Ryder, Let's _please_ just do something fun today because mom's not here to be a real mom. She's never here to be a real mom, and I just can't cope like this anymore and it's so hard to look after Danny sometimes all by myself, so yeah want to come in? We have macaroons.'  
Or, he supposes, some people might just describe it as 'sad'.

"Yeah." He agrees. "She can be a real headfuck if you don't mind me saying. ...Is your brother home?" he asks. She rolls her eyes.  
Danny and Ryder always got on well. Too well if you asked her. I mean, what kind of 16 year old, football playing, guitar strumming, leather wearing, _flirt_, would spend _three_ hours playing Mario kart with an eight year old? And how did he _always_ end up forcing her to play with them? The bastard.  
"No, Ryder he's not. Much to your disappointment I'm sure. I'm sure you were looking forward to playing with someone with the same mental age as you." But he's still waiting for an answer, worried that her insults are to cover up something. "He's staying up with dad." She explains.  
"Ah. And you won't?"  
"What the fuck do you think?" she mutters.

"You want me to stay the night?" he offers. "Keep you company?" And it's not like a _real_ boy asking a _real_ girl if she wants him to spend the night. Because he's just Ryder and she's just Jade and they've known each other since the end of time. And anyway, he used to stay over all the time, when _his_ father _was_ home and he didn't feel like being there with him, and _her_ mother _wasn't_ home and she didn't feel like being there alone. So he'd come over with a bottle of coke and a bottle vodka, (because they're just teenagers like that and it's only for a laugh and anyway he only drinks about a sixteenth of the bottle), and about twelve different DVD's, _all_, (despite what Ryder says) of the _worst_ horror films _ever, _that _seriously_ make her want to_ sue _the production companies_._ And they fall asleep on the couch to the sounds of blonde cheerleaders getting eaten, her head on his lap and him leaning against the armrest, and they don't think anything of it. Because they're just Ryder and Jade and nothing about them was ever complicated like that.

But tonight is different, she thinks, because _one_, she hasn't spoken to him in like a year and for all she knows he might like _good_ films now, like The Shining or the Blair Witch Project and he might _not_ get up in the morning and _attempt_ to make banana pancakes and he might drink a quarter of the bottle of vodka now. And also, she just remembered that Beck and her are not together and she suddenly just wants to die and she feels her lip start to tremble and her heart start to race and her fingers clench into fists and it's just the _scariest_ thing ever, not being _Beck's_ and she knows that in about two seconds she's going to absolutely break into pieces, and there is _no way_ she's letting anyone see that.

So she says:  
"No, it's cool. I'll manage." And hops out of the car so the darkness can cover up the water that's filling her eyes.  
He rolls down the window as she runs up her drive and call out to her.  
"I'll call you later okay Jade? …And thanks for talking to me again!" he shouts but she just waves her hand behind her and disappears into the house.

She drops to the floor against the door, hyperventilating. Ryder made her forget for about ten minutes what had happened. But he was gone now, and Beck was never coming back and Beck didn't open the door and Beck said that he was tired of them and Beck had lied when he promised that they'd be together forever and Beck …wasn't hers anymore. And it was over. It was all over.

And you had to be heartless, she thought, if you had heard her screaming, not to run in to put her out of her misery.


	5. Tears

_Beck! I don't know where I'm going with this story. lol! This is why I hate multichapters - they always have to have a stupid ending for some reason. _  
_I don't own Victorious._

* * *

André glances at Beck yet again, for like the sixtieth time that night. Despite Tori's worried, bitten bottom lip, she had given in to Beck's demands and scurried to her dad's special cabinet to pour him a shot of vodka. Which they had all tried, to seem relaxed and blasé and cool about it (except Cat of course, after Beck's refusal to give her any) but now, after Beck's ninth, they weren't all sure this was such a good idea.  
Particularly André.

He glances at his best friend holding his playing cards, but not really seeing them and he knew Beck well enough to know that he was only sitting here to save face. He _chose_ not to open the door, he _asked_ to play cards right after she left, so he could hardly sprint out to his car now to chase after her. But he could tell that this 'performance' of playing was driving him insane, because nobody really wanted to play anymore and Tori was trying to sneak the bottle away from him and Jade had left and she was never coming back and Cat was sitting by the piano with tears streaking down her face.

After Jade had left, Cat got angry. And not even her kittycat angry with her soft little padded blows, but real fiestycat angry with furious claws and manic screeching.  
None of them knew what to do with this absolutely _livid_ Cat, particularly Beck, who'd always hold her hand when she was crossing the road and bring her back snow globes from his visits to Canada and drive her to the make a bear factory on a Saturday morning when there was no one at home to take her, and he blinked, frozen, his eyes fixed on Cat's hysterical tirade.

"Open the door Beck! Open it _now_! Open it! Open it! Open it! Open it! Open it! Open it! Open it! –"  
"Cat." He whispers, interrupting her screams. "She's gone."  
"You're awful Beck Oliver" which was pretty much 'fuck you' for Cat. "I hate you! Why did you do that?" And he couldn't answer her because he honestly didn't know, and right now her screaming was giving him this awful dreading sinking feeling like he was understanding what he'd done.  
"She's gone Beck! Gone! Why did you have to hurt her like that? Why do you _always_ have to hurt her? I hate you!" and her words hurt Beck more than he would show, because if Cat would scream at him like that he must be the worst person in the world and Jade was gone, she was actually _gone_, and eventually it was Robbie to be the one to calm her down.  
"Shh, Cat, don't cry" and he took her in his arms until the silent room was filled with her awful heartbreaking sobs.

Cat now sat next to the piano, her eyes seeing nothing and her cheeks streaked with tears. Robbie had long since got home at nine o'clock since it was almost 'Time for Tuck-in!' André, Tori, Trina and even Beck and gone over to Cat and hunched down beside her and asked her if she needed anything, but each time she'd shake her head and say nothing.  
André glances at Beck again and his expression is so self-loathing that he seriously can't stand this. He knows that Beck's only still here because he's waiting for the time to turn 'just late enough' that no-one would even think to call him weak. Not that anyone would of course but Beck gets weird about image and reputation and stupid things like that. But André thinks he should just put himself out of his misery and leave and Tori can stop having an aneurism, bouncing on her seat like a demented goat, so he gets up and pats Beck on the shoulder.

"Hey man, let's bolt, I gotta work tomorrow."  
And he can see that Beck really wants to leave but he's still worried about his goddamn pride and is about to open his mouth to say 'then bolt André. I'll see you later' so André cuts him off before he can.  
"Come on man, your wasted and I gotta drive your sorry butt home anyway so get in the car because I'm leaving." And Beck rolls his eyes (a Jade habit) and slams his cards down and says:  
"Fine. God, I'm going." But it's okay because really he's saying 'thanks André. Finally. Let's go.' Or something like that. And he gets up to get his jacket from the couch.

André goes over to Tori's chair and gently rubs her shoulders from behind her.  
"Thank God, he's leaving" mutters André.  
"You'll be okay getting home?" she murmurs back. "You had a few to drink."  
"Not that much, I'll be okay."  
"Okay. Call me when you get home then."  
"Will do" he promises.  
"André?" she whispers. "Will he be alright?" And André looks over at Beck, forcing his jacket over his plaid shirt angrily, his hair slicked back from being ran through and his eyes black and emotionless, which means _very_ emotional, and sighs.  
"No." he whispers with conviction and taps her shoulder, making his way over to Beck.

"C'mon man. Let's hit the road" but Beck's eyes soften guiltily when he spots the little huddled red head by the piano and walks over to her, desperate to put a smile back on her face.  
"Cat? Kittycat?" She looks up, her eyes blank and red. He hunches down beside her and takes her hand. "I'm sorry Cat. Really. Please don't be sad." She still looks at him and her indifference is making him _sick_. Cat's sad, Cat's happy, Cat's hurt, Cat's confused, Cat's sulky and at times (like this) Cat's angry (though never at this scale.) But Cat is _not_ indifferent.

"Please Cat, can I see one little smile? Just one?" He makes that funny face that he knows she loves and her lips slowly turn up at the corners and he knows that she's about to smile but her phone rings and she snatches her hand from his to answer it.  
She looks at the number and then glances up at Beck fearfully, and Beck just _knows_ it's Jade.

His suspicions are confirmed when she answers quietly:  
"Jadey?" And he can't hear Jade's answer because Cat has got up and walked over to André and he takes her hand in his and _sure_, she has no problem with _him_ doing that.  
"Yes." She answers a question. The whole room is silent, focused on the phone call. But then Cat's face drops and her lips tremble and everyone know that she's just about to burst into tears.

"No, no no Jade, no!" she protests, little tears streaming down her cheeks. Becks stands up and stares at Cat.  
"Jade, please, it's not like that! It's not! Please Jade don't –" She's cut off and Beck walks over to get closer to stare at Cat. Don't _what_ Jade? Was she okay? It severely didn't sound like it. What if something _else_ had happened? Something with her mom or her brother and Beck had just broken up with her? What if –"

"I'm coming over. Wait there." She commands feebly and hangs up and then announces:  
"I need a ride to Jade's." And Beck still so scared about the call, asks her:  
"Cat, what's wrong? Is Jade okay?" And she frowns at him indignantly.  
"I need a ride." She repeats, ignoring him.  
"I'll you a ride little red" André offers rubbing her hysterical back.  
"Uh… André I'm sure that's such a good idea." Tori objects. "You're going to drop Cat at _Jades?_ With _Beck_ in the car?" And Beck stays quiet, with the sting of isolation. Burdership. Of consequences and shame and '_yeah Beck, get used to it_.'

"Oh. Yeah." André agrees.  
"Me and Trina can take you" offers Tori. "C'mon Trina." And Trina nods, grabbing her keys, forgetting her that her nails need painting in all the tension that filled the room.  
"Wait! Cat!" Beck protests as the girls file out the door. "_Is she okay_?" And the silence is killing him because what if she's not? Like seriously not? And he's never been more terrified of the cute little red head with the bows in her hair. She glares at him.  
"No." she affirms coldly, and walks out the door with Trina and Tori at her heels.


	6. Jokes

_Okay I just finished reading the hunger games trilogy and I'm so wound up. I'm a little late on the hunger-game hype, I know. Anyway despite the fact that I didn't really like her writing style, I loved the story-line but what is up with that ending? If you can call it an ending. Anyone who's read the last would know what I mean. Sorry, I'm just so on edge. Imma stop now. I had to look up those jokes online by the way. By searching 'bad pun jokes'. The result is pretty accurate.  
And I do not own Victorious. _

* * *

The next day at school Jade and Cat are back to their normal selves and it's giving Tori whiplash. Cat bounces around wearing a pink princess dress and yellow heels and her makeup is now bright and clear. Like her expression. And her attitude. Tori wonders if that's just a Jade thing she's picked up. Deception.  
"Hi Tori!" she says that morning at her locker.  
"Hi Cat. Are you feeling better today?" she asks, worried.

She was up half the night worrying about Jade and Beck, and Cat and her reaction. Her tears yesterday had reminded everyone just how awful of an incindent it was. And it was awful. Jade wasn't going to get over this. Beck wouldn't be able to cope without her. But Cat smiles.  
"Uh huh. I got to eat pancakes in the morning at Jade let me put honey _and_ maple syrup on it!" sounding delighted with her accomplishment, as if syrup and honey were the only known cures for broken hearts.  
"And how's Jade today?" Tori asks intensely. She didn't like when Jade broke. 'Unnatural', was the word that always sprang to mind.  
"Jade's so nice. We had such a fun night last night!" And Tori severely doubts this because Cat wouldn't even let Tori or Trina _near_ Jade's driveway last night, in case they would see her. In all her pain, and vulnerability, and Cat's face was so worryingly _worried_, when she jumped out of the car and ran full speed up to Jade's front door, so she presses her.

"_Cat_." Cat stops jumping and smiling and being normal and looks up at her with her baby brown eyes.  
"She kept crying. I didn't know what to do! And she wouldn't stop, _all night_." She whispers. Tori rubs her jaw, feeling real uneasy. She didn't like when Jade would act like this. Jade was so confident all the time and when she would act like _this_… (Unnatural, she thinks).  
"Don't tell!" whispers Cat and Tori promises as Jade walks over, like a dramatic whirlwind. Her hair's straightened, her lips are bright red, she's wearing a sweetheart black dress, black tights and heels and Tori can't help but think, it's all just a beautiful sinful _mask_.

"Vega. Cat." She nods and Tori knows she's saving face right now. Just like Beck last night. They were similar like that.  
"Hi Jade. How are you today?" she asks kindly.  
"Pissy. Cat would _seriously_ not shut _up_ last night." Cat shook her head in frantic agreement. Anything Jade said was the right answer today.  
"I really wouldn't." she confirms.  
"Anyway Tori," Jade continues. "I was thinking we should start practising our duet sometime."  
And Tori knows enough as when to co-operate with a subject change and starts talking songs and harmonies and times to practise.

And everything's cool and everybody's pretending perfectly and that's just the way Jade likes it. But then Ryder arrives. And makes a bee line straight for Jade. Of course. Tori jumps out of the way when she feels him behind her.  
"Jade!" he exclaims with a very accusatory 'what the hell!' tone. Jade glances at Tori, almost anxiously , not wanting her to think that she _knows_ this asshole who broke her heart. Though she knows him well. Ryder follows her gaze.

"Hey, Tori. How you been?" And she answers "Fine" because it was a year ago, and Ryder personally apologized and Tori's not one to hold a grudge if a boy buys her a 'I'm –beary-sorry' bear.  
Jade rolls her eyes and looks to Tori.  
"I'll see you later okay?" she says pointedly. Which means 'piss off Vega. You too Cat.'  
So they do.

"What?" she hisses angrily.  
"Someone told me..." he begins and then swallows, looking at her intently, careful not to miss her reaction, making her feel uncomfortable under his x-ray eyes. His eyes stray a little too long looking at that sinful, _sinful_ dress and those _lips_ and were her legs always that...long? But he looks into her eyes and continues.  
"Someone told me that last night, you and Beck…" She raises her eyebrows, making him _say it_ goddammit! "That you and Beck... broke up."

And she likes that he said it. No denials, no beating-round-the-bushes, no 'let's pretend' games. It happened. It did. Oh God, it _did_.  
"Uh huh..?" she nods, patronisingly.  
"That's what was wrong yesterday wasn't it?" he presses earnestly. She rolls her eyes, not wanting to admit that _he_ was the reason that she was upset. Of course he was. Of course. It was always about him.

"No, not _necessarily_. I told you yesterday. It was just life being a bitch."  
"Yeah. Because Beck _broke your heart_. I _knew_ he'd do this to you, didn't I always say? God, he's such a _prick_." She slams her locker shut turning to him.  
"He did _not _break my heart!" she insists, and turns to leave but he grabs her hand. Her _hand_. Not her wrist, and it's sweet and it isn't governing.

"Jade…" his face is upset. Upset for her. She doesn't like it. Ryder's always so happy. She doesn't want to be felt bad for. So she growls and rips her hand from his, making his face plummet and she snarls "Tell me a joke." He blinks.  
"Huh?"  
"A joke? A _joke_ you numbskull. I want to hear a fucking joke." And his worried lips turn up in a delighted grin and she instantly feels better.

"Okay okay you'll like this one." He coughs and gets into his (apparent) funny mode.  
"Okay so, I'm reading a book about anti-gravity right? It's just impossible to put down." He laughs, pleased with himself, and she can't help but laugh back at the pure shitness of the joke.  
"Funny right?"  
"...That was awful!" she states but she shoves his head affectionately, smiling and walks off to class.

"Wait wait wait, how about this one?" he persists, running after her. "Okay did you hear about the guy whose whole left side was cut off? He's all _right _now." He chuckles dorkily and she smiles.  
"Horrible." She complains, but he keeps grinning like a loser because look, he made her smile!  
He leans by the door of her home room class and she shakes her head and walks through the door, still smiling.

A year is really too long, she thinks.


	7. Flipper

_I thought of a way to end this the last day but then I forgot. lol! Only _I_ could do that._  
_And I don't own Victorious_

* * *

André's sitting on Jade's floor, against her bed and flicking through her drawing pad while he waits for her to get ready. She's drawn a lot of birds and butterflies and things that he could see around him – her piano, her vanity table, her view from the window. Of course there's weird _Jade_ things too, like scissors or sad crying clowns or a dead girl, floating in a well. There's also a lot of her little brother, grinning toothily with an ice-cream in his hand or sitting wide-eyed watching her in a play so André knew she had drawn them from photographs. There was the odd sketch of Beck sleeping, or Cat gazing up at the clouds or André under a spotlight playing his guitar. But there are two drawings that strike him as odd and he calls out to Jade to explain them to him.

"What?" she snaps, coming out of the bathroom, her hair now tied in a long plait and her top changed for a little sleeveless shirt, tied in a knot.  
"I was just looking at your drawings and there was one picture that –"  
"You were looking at my drawings?" she repeats, outraged. "And who said you could do that?" She puts her hands on her hips, which are covered in ripped black leggings and glares at him.  
"Woah, chill Jade. They're really good." She lets him away with that. "It's just there's these two pictures that just... sorta confuse me here.  
She hunches down next to his resting spot to look at the picture he's showing her.

It's a drawing of a photograph that was taken a couple of years ago. Her and Ryder had gone to see Macbeth in Bakersfield together because she was obsessed with Shakespeare's tragedies at the time and her Dad was visiting so he decided to take her out to see Macbeth. He had watched her face, entranced and spellbound throughout the play and smiled to himself. (She was particularly taken with Lady Macbeth and her excursion to insanity. Whatever Jade, whatever.) And afterwards, when they had left the theatre to arrive at slippery cobblestone and dripping rain, he had grabbed her hand before they ran across the courtyard, to the car, slipping and stumbling and laughing all over the place so he had pulled her towards him to pull out the camera away to capture the moment. The picture was cute, as she grinned up at him cutely, in a totally _un-Jade_ way and his face creased up in laughter, his eyes closed and crinkly in a totally _un-Ryder_ way, and to André, she looked happier than he had ever seen.

"What's Ryder Daniels doing in your sketchpad?" he asks, flipping the page back to show her another one of Ryder, aged 9, blowing out birthday candles. She glances at André's suspicious frown and tosses her plait over her shoulder.  
"We're friends. I told you that."  
"Yeah, but I didn't know you were _real _friends. Like me and you real friends. I thought you just knew each other because your mom and his mom were friends something." He suggests.  
"Sort of. It's more the other way round. _His_ mom and _my_ mom know each other because me and _Ryder _are friends. We met in singing class when we were kids."  
"Singing?"  
"Yeah. We used to duet together. And his dad and my dad both hated it so we sort of laughed about that too." He looks at her, urging her to continue and she shrugs.

"I don't know what to say. We clicked, we became friends, we grew up together. …And then I stopped talking to him last year because he started acting like a _dick_." André's lips slowly pull up in a suspicious smile and his eyes narrow knowingly.  
"Last _year_? You mean around the time he tried to use Tori?" He's still smiling and she wants to hit him.  
"Uh, _no_. I really could not care less what he did to Tori." She says menacingly but he's still smiling so now she just has to hit him. But he catches her wrist before she does.  
"_Girl_, you so do! You ignored him for her." And can he look _anymore_ gleeful? She doesn't think so and she scowls and drops down to land beside him.  
"I don't _care_ about _Vega_" she mutters stubbornly. But he just chuckles and says:  
"Sure you don't. …But I promise I won't tell her okay?" And she folds her arms but he knows that they're cool. "C'mon, let's go." He smiles and shoves her arm. "Or we'll be late to see the dolphin show."

They had arrived to SeaWorld in time for André to see his beloved Flipper and Sebastian flip in the air in front of him, his pudgy hands clapping together and his giggles of 'Do it again Flipper!' irritating Jade to death. But she snapped a picture of his face, hoping to draw him later. When the show was over they walked around together, aiming for the underground tunnels to watch the seals.  
"I never thought you and Ryder'd be friends you know." She thinks of the picture of young Ryder blowing out his candles. Flashbacks of water guns, and blue cake-icing and Chinese burns appear.

"I know when you mentioned you guys were friends I didn't think too much of it – y'know, an _older_ guy, likes wearing _black_, mysterious, a player, _y'know_? I thought he'd be right up the Jade West Street. But whenever I saw you with him, man I started thinking about it – and I started thinking that you two do _not_ go together." She raises her eyebrows. He normally shuts up about opinions and judgments and things like that and just lets her get on with it.  
"And why's that?"  
"Well he's a douchebag. He picks up girls and throws them away, and he never shuts up about his gigs and he just thinks he's great. And you, …well you're really just a sweetie." He says, shoving her.  
She's motionless staring at him.  
"A _sweetie_?" she repeats in a sickening way. Oh he's so getting a beating.

"Yeah. You don't tell no-one. But _I _know." She rolls her eyes at how wrong he was.  
"Right, uh huh," she says patronisingly, disbelievingly. "If you think me and Ryder are wrong together, then what about me and Cat then?"  
"Nah, you and Cat are different." He disagrees as they enter the dark tunnel entrance. "You and Cat treat each other good. And I know, I know, what you're going to say, you shout at her all the time, but really if she needed you, you'd do anything for her."  
"And you don't think Ryder would for me? Because yeah, I know, he's a cocky tool, but that's just like I'm a scary bitch. But even so, he would. He'd do anything for me." She sounds proud of this fact.  
"He would?" he sounds doubtful. They tunnel is dim and almost dream-like and they sit on the furthest bench, directly in front of the window to stare into the bottom of the glowing blue sea.

"Yeah. One time I jumped in the sea and he swam in to save me 'cause he thought I'd drowned. …And when my mom used to leave, he'd stay over at mine to keep me company. And when my Dad used to visit, he'd take me to the movies so I didn't have to see him." André smiles.  
"But that's _my_ job now aint it? And you love SeaWorld way better don't ya?" She snorts.  
"Uh huh. It's the best part of the month. I absolutely live for those moments with Flipper and Sebastian." _So_ sarcastic. He digs his elbow in her.  
"You _love_ it." A silence. "Jade?" She looks up. "You're no bitch. You might be scary. But you're not a bitch." She looks into his sincere chocolate brown eyes, and hers soften in return.  
"Shut up André." An attempt at keeping her dignity.

"So, how's that song you've been working on?" Changing the subject. He responds enthusiastically. He was obviously proud of it.  
"So far, it's pretty good. The chorus is driving me insane though." She rolls her eyes at his sudden enthusiasm. Throw a bit of music conversation at him and he'll be at it like a dog with a bone. He starts discussing melodies and his strumming pattern and she throws in ideas for his chorus, filling the dark echoed tunnel with lilting notes and soulful harmonies.

After a while of singing and '_Yes, that's good, keep going'_ and writing lyrics across his hand of all places when he got inspiration (_do _you_ see paper down here Jade?_) he shuts up and looks at his feet, looking uncomfortable.  
"Jade …we never really talked about it …'cause I didn't want to upset you. …But I'm real sorry about you and Beck." He's so sincere and concerned. It's making her feel uneasy because he's reminding her that there's something to be sad about. There's something to cry about.  
"Yeah. Everyone's sorry. Everyone's sorry but Beck." She puts her head in her hands, her eyes fixed on the glowing eerie water through the wall sized glass window.

He chuckles a bit making her jaw clench.  
"Jay," he says quietly. "You don't know how wrong you are. He's so lost without you, you don't even know."  
She's quiet because no one's ever told her how Beck's doing and she'd _never_ throw away her pride like that and y'know _ask._ So she freezes, listening to his every word hoping not to put André off.  
"He just... he doesn't know how to cope without you. Y'know? I mean, the Friday after you broke up I asked him what he was doing. And he said he was taking you out to dinner. A reflex y'know. He didn't even realise. And Tori had to tap his shoulder and ask him what was wrong with that sentence before he got it. And you should've seen his face Jade. Shit, his face when he comprehended that you guys were over. Man, it was like something from A&E." He paused, realising that for once today, he's got Jade's complete and undivided attention and he realises this is all she wants to hear.

"He's so different Jay, he just doesn't know how to act without you. Y'know he keeps buying coffee in the mornings because he can't seem to shake the habit? He gives it to that homeless guy instead. And man, he won't take off that necklace for _nobody_." He smirks even though none of this is funny whatsoever.  
"Necklace?" she asks, pretending not to care. Pretending for who? Thinks André. He _knows_ how much she cares. It's obvious by the obsessive tapping of her fingers and the intensity of her gaze.  
"Yeah. Y'know your matching necklaces? Doesn't take that off for anything. He's real weird about it. It's like he doesn't want to admit you're gone." Jade frowns.  
"But he _wanted_ me gone. He didn't open the door. And of _course,_ he's just 'ever so _tired._'"  
"Yeah. Of fighting. Not of you Jay. Never of you." She shrugs, masking her uneasiness.  
"It doesn't matter anyway does it? We're over."

And they sit down on the bench in the dark tunnel, to watch the seals swim up and up and up until… poof! They disappear.


	8. Lunch

_Okay I remembered the ending I thought of. I don't like happy-ever-after endings okay so just be prepared. I will not be satisfactory.  
I don't own Victorious._

* * *

School's weird without 'Jade&Beck.' Everyone can feel it, not just them. The first few days she ignored him, and he glanced at her, wondering if she was okay. Though he was hardly going to _ask_ that. He liked his face the way it was thanks. Cat had just freaked him out with her screams and he can't seem to strike up a casual conversation with Jade to break the ice like he originally planned now. Jade had made up excuses not to eat lunch with the gang the first few days – she had extra singing classes, or she had a deadline for her art class or she had to speak with Sinjin, for God's sakes, about props for her play.  
Until André had grabbed her arm, before she ran off to do some other unnecessary job for lunch on Thursday.

"Jade. _Where_ you going?" Patronisingly.  
"Homework" she stated arrogantly, like it was obvious. "I've maths next. With Mr Jameson." She made a face and André shook his head at her excuse.  
"Jade. You've no homework to do." He stated bluntly. "Come have lunch with us." And her face was livid.  
"Uh..._yes_, in fact I _do_ have homework to do. So can you let go of me now?"

"Jade" he persisted, softer. "Come have lunch with us. We're still your friends. No one's choosing sides here." Her eyes looked up sharply into his.  
"I think you've already chosen." She stated coldly. He shook his head again.  
"That's not how things are going down Jay. We're not choosing sides. C'mon, Cat misses you at the table. She's so droopy now, it's worrying Tori. And I need my soul sister with me yeah?" He grins at her, making ever so slightly, _nearly _smile.

"Look, André, I _do_ actually have homework to do, okay I'm not just trying to avoid him." He scoffed which she ignored. "But, besides that, how _awkward_ is that going to be huh? Beck eats a beef taco with his friends and his ex-girlfriend? I don't think so."  
"_Your_ friends too Jay, not just his. In fact, Cat's giving him the cold shoulder, it's so cute. And I think Tori's trying to get him to apologise to you – she feels bad about not inviting yous last week. She thinks it's her fault." Jade sighed.  
"God, can she ever mind her business? Not everything's about her." A pause. "I don't need her to get an apology from him okay? And you can tell her that." Another pause and then she speaks, quietly now. "And tell her that it's not her fault." She muttered, looking down. André smiled at his girl. A _sweetheart_, what did he say?

"Sure." And he reached down to hold her hand but it's gentler and warmer and not constricting. But it's André and it's just nice. "C'mon" he encouraged reassuringly, "Let's go to lunch."  
And she bit her lip, wondering if she should try to save her pride and continue the 'homework' excuse, but André knew what she was deliberating and contemplated just how alike Jade and Beck were, and wondered who learned from who? So he pulled her hand gently, leading her towards the Asphalt Café, reassuringly staring into her eyes like, 'It's cool Jay. Everything's chill, I got ya.'

Of course there was an obvious little split in the table for a while there. Cat would sit devotedly beside Jade every day, asking her constant questions and telling jokes a mile a minute, making Jade want to kick her, even if she was being sweet. Robbie would sit next to Cat, but being afraid of Jade, particularly in her emotional state, he'd normally talk to Beck. That left Tori and André to be the mediators, although Jade would glare every time Tori tried to talk to her, feeling pitied and André would talk to Jade more, feeling responsible for her.

Jade, of course, wasn't having anything to do with Beck, and he was pretty much waiting for her to make the first move (as usual) despite the rare 'passing of the sugar' exchanges or even more infrequent 'Hi's. Beck really couldn't stand this invisible barrier between his friends, and really was Jade just _never_ going to talk to him again? He really, really_, really_ didn't mean to hurt her.

He's sitting on the stage of the blackbox theatre, watching Robbie and Cat scream at each other, the lines in the script they had to learn for Sikowitz. He watches Cat's hysterical hand gestures, and wonders if she picked it up from Jade. He starts to get lost in thought, Jade's hands plastering his mind. She has very addictive hands. Almost hypnotizing.

"Beck? Is anymore home?" And he snaps out of it to find Robbie's enquiring face ogling at him.  
"Hmm?"  
"You missed your cue. You were meant to start your lines." He looks at his script.  
"Oh. Right. Okay, let's take it from your line Cat, and I'll be ready then." Cat looks at him haughtily, obviously about to ignore the living crap out of him. He sighs.

"Cat. What's up?" he asks, playing dumb. She breathes out her nose, pouting a little and shrugs.  
He sighs again, running his hand through his hair.  
"Kittycat?" he presses, wanting an answer. "What's up?" taking a step closer to her. Her shoulders slump, making her look defeated and she looks down.  
"I'm mad at you" she mumbles. Another sigh.  
"And why are you mad at me?" A little frown.  
"Because you did a bad thing to my best friend."  
"Yeah Cat, we broke up. Sometimes couples do that. But me and you will still be friends right?" She blinks at him, like a confused little deer.  
"Yeah" she says sadly like she doesn't really want to.

"Cat, Beck did nothing wrong" Robbie rationalises. "It's not wrong if a guy just need a break from a woman's persistent _nagging_." And Beck rolls his eyes, because Robbie just wants to sound experienced in relationships and really, he doesn't know Jade, when she's quiet and protective and sweet so his comment is very insignificant. But Cat gets angry and immediately comes to her defense.

"She didn't _nag_ him! She was _angry_ because he stopped liking her! Stop being mean Robbie!"  
"Cat, I'm sorry! I didn't mean it." Pacifies Robbie hastily.  
"Okay" she smiles, over it. Beck frowns at her.  
"Cat, what do you mean I stopped liking her? I love…d her." Cat turns to him.  
"I know you love her." (He notices her use of the present tense). "But you stopped liking her so much." ..._Whaaat?_

"Who said that? _Jade_?" She shakes her head.  
"She didn't need to. You take her to Tori's house or André's house now instead of making her dinner at home. And you keep '_forgetting_' to return her calls."  
"Cat, we were together for three _years_, it's not like we still have the same –"  
"And you didn't even notice how sad she was after her daddy visited that time last month. You don't even know what he said to her." Beck swallows, and Robbie lifts his head, curiously.

"W… what did he say Cat?" She shrugs.  
"What do you care anymore?"  
"Cat, don't be like that, I still care about her –"  
"Oh yeah? Talk to her at lunch then! Or she's never going to talk to you again. How would you like that Beck?"  
And he thinks, 'not at all. I wouldn't like that one little bit.'


	9. Emily

_Okay I'm sure everyone heard by now that Victorious is ending. It was so hilarious and I loved the characters like I never knew... like these stories, I go into so much detail, and depth with them and basically read too much into a show that was originally just meant to bring a smile to the face of a _nine_ year old.  
I do want to point out that the cast, and Ariana, (I'm signalling her out because of the hate she got over her new show with Jennette) and Dan Schneider are just as upset about this as we are. Like Victorious must have been his baby, he made it and the network's now cancelled it. It must be hard for him. So don't hate. They're all upset - just say thank you. He did a good thing.  
I don't own Victorious._

* * *

The doorbell rings and Jade jumps, sitting on the sofa, reading a book. She gets jumpy like this when she's left alone. Which, unfortunately, is a lot. Beck would usually be here to deal with this kinda stuff. Or, rather, she'd be at Beck's. '_But Beck's not here anymore'_ she thinks. '_Grow up Jade_.'  
Jade walks into the hall and slowly opens the door and Ryder's standing there with a bottle of vodka in one hand and a bottle of coke in the other and a stupid grin on his face.

"What are you doing Ryder?" she asks exasperatedly.  
"Keeping you company" he grins wider, and despite his casually gelled black hair and his worn leather jacket, he still reminds her of the fourteen year old Ryder who used to bring his chess set and wear his hoodie. He had the same expectant cheeky grin and the same superior glint in his eyes, like he thought he had made her day by just existing.

"I don't need you to keep me company okay? I've handled it for a year without you thanks, I think I'll be okay now." She's a little bitter, because even if she was the one who stopped talking to him, she _did_ still need him on those nights. When she was alone and there was no-one there to have a full blown popcorn fight with and no-one would be there to have a karaoke session with and she wouldn't wake up in the morning to the smell of burning batter and the sounds of 'shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!' The house would just be quiet and haunting, reminding her that it was just her. Just her.

That was about the time that Beck would show. With his faded red Chevy and a take-away cup of coffee from 'Coffee And Cream' and he'd drive her through the darkness and the _nowhere-ness_ as his headlights light up nothing but the road. And he'd take her hand when she walked around the car to meet him, pulling her into his RV and grabbing her waist to press his lips to hers. They'd wake in the morning to the music of the replaying title screen in The Scissoring and monopoly money scattered around them like autumn leaves.

He was always there. Unlike her father and her mom and even her brother who spent most weekends with her father and Sarah and their stupid Bichon Frise. She couldn't really see the appeal. A bastard, a fake and a mutt? No thanks. Beck would take her to his RV play with her hand the whole time so she would forget about their constant absence. She had Beck. Though really, he was gone now, so now what was she supposed to believe in? She looked back at Ryder, her fists clenching by her sides.

"Whatever Jade. You were ignoring me then. C'mon, I brought refreshments!" Ryder coaxes, holding up his drinks. She doesn't respond but crosses her arms, so he rolls his eyes, smiling and pushes past her anyway.  
"I got a really scary film too. It's called Night of the Halloween Party Disaster. 2."  
She rolls her eyes, but a smile lights up her face at the familiarity and safeness of his obvious awful movie title. And she shakes her head and slams the door, walking over to where Ryder was waiting with a grin.

They were sprawled over the couch lazily, their glasses of vodka on the table and their glasses of coke in their hands.  
"Ryder…" she begins.  
"Mmm?"  
"What the fuck is this?"  
"The movie? It's good isn't it?"  
"I just… I really don't know why I let you put on these movies. The cast seems to be strictly made up of blonde anorexic sixteen year olds who all seem to have a dress code of transparent pyjamas." Ryder nods smiling.  
"Yeah baby. That's just how Ryder likes them." Jade whacks him with her pillow.  
"Perv." There's a pause. And then:

"Jade. How are you?" Sincere. She looks round at him, because he isn't commenting on Melissa's double D's in the film or offering her the bowl of popcorn and this question is phrased so intensely and seems to be going somewhere bad but she doesn't know where.  
"Fine." Cautiously. A limited answer – just to make him elaborate.

"I meant… with Beck. I mean you two guys, you were pretty serious weren't you?" She swallows. Yeah, she thinks, we _were_ pretty serious. Meaning, past tense. Meaning not now and not ever again.  
"Mmmhmm." Contained. A limited answer. There was no way she was going to cry in front of Ryder. Again. (Come on he knew her since she was _eight._) He hesitates, sensing her reluctance, but he's worried about her and he wants to know how she is.

"Do you want me to beat him up for you?" he offers, making her smile a little. "'Cause I can. I'll unleash my full expertise of Ti Kwan Do on his ass." She snorts.  
"And what full expertise would that be?"  
"Well…y'know. That time I went when I was nine."  
"You went for one lesson Ryder. The most you learned was how to warm up."  
"You have no faith in me." He pouts. "…But Jade, really. I _will_ hit him if you want. That guy's is such a prick, I don't mind." She frowns.

"Why do you always call him a prick? What's he ever done to you?" she asks.  
"Well… nothing directly. But it's just the way he treats you sometimes. ...He didn't make your fifteenth birthday! A quinceanera is a very important celebration for a girl."  
"God, you've _never_ let that go! He was in _Canada_! And I'm not Latina, I didn't even a _have_ a quinceanera"  
"Yeah, I know, but you should've. Those things are so fun." She nudges him.

"You always make out Beck to be some …_disrespectful_, …manipulative, licentious _bastard_." She spluttered. "But he's not."  
"Uh huh, how?" he asks sceptically.  
"Well …for one, he buys me coffee every morning. Like every morning. And if dad's home, he takes me to his house and doesn't take me home 'till like 1 in the morning just in case he's still there. If he takes me home at all." Ryder blinks. "And he's just to sit with me for hours while I cut up flowers if I'm having a bad day. And he always knows if I'm upset and he makes me dinner on Thursday nights and then takes me out on Fridays. You just don't know him. He loves me."

A comprehending and stuttering pause, kicking herself for what she just said.  
"Or…he did. He used to." She swallows and looks away from Ryder's gaze.  
Used to. Did. Was. Has been. Not anymore. Not now. Not ever again. _Used_ to.

"Jade?"  
"Mmm?"  
"He's no good for you. He thinks you're his. And he can do whatever he wants and you'll still come back to him. He doesn't treat you right." And that's how Ryder gets when he's trying to tell Jade the truth. Honest. Passionate. And full of crap, Jade thinks.

"Shut up Ryder."  
"He doesn't."  
"Don't tell me bullshit."  
"I'm not! You're too good for him." Jade's head snaps around her eyes livid.  
"Oh yeah? Then why did he break up with _me_ because _I_ was being a _bitch_ then? You want to contradict me? Huh? No. Because you know it's true."

There's a silence and Ryder tries to clear his head and understand what she's saying. A bitch? _She's_ a bitch? She thinks _she's_ a bitch? There's a flash in his mind of the very possible future, of Ryder walking to Beck's home and punching him in the face. What the fuck did he do to her? He messed her up. He messed up _his_ Jade. His Jayjay that watches Celebrity deaths with him and takes him to her stupid Shakespeare plays and has full blown popcorn fights with him. He fucking screwed her up.

"Jade –"  
"No!" she disagrees. "Don't. Don't contradict me." And looks back at the TV whiles Ryder stares at her with furious eyes.  
"Okay Jade, _this_ is why I think he's a prick. Because he does _this_ to you. _You're_ a bitch? You're telling that to the guy who asked out your _friend_ in order to get a good _grade_." Jade hesitates.  
"You weren't yourself." She defends automatically. "Anyway, Tori's not my friend." Ryder snorts in a sarcastic sort of way. Oh right, so that _wasn't_ the reason she stopped talking to him then. I see.

"So." She begins, changing the subject now. "How's _Ryder's_ love life going now?" she asks. He raises his eyebrows, muttering.  
"Not that well, after Tori sang that song." Jade hides a smile. "You pretty much ruined my credibility of my Love God status."  
"You deserved it dude."  
"I guess."

"So the famous flirtatious Ryder Daniels, isn't after _anyone_?" He shrugs awkwardly at her accusations.  
"Dude, c'mon, she sang that song to you like _last year_. Stop using it as an excuse."  
"People have long memories. Especially needy girls with obsessions of 'love'. I've got the rep of being a heartbreaker now – not many come back from that." Jade laughs.  
"Damn dude. You got it rough." She laughs again, her eyes crinkling and he stares. "Ok well I'll help you get a ladyfriend." She offers jeeringly. "…What about Lisa Fielder?" Ryder makes a face.  
"The red head in your English class? Uh, _no_. She's a bit too… forceful, for me." Jade bites her lip, nodding.  
"I guess. A bit 'in your face.' Okay, well what about …Natasha Benson? She's super-hot." Ryder nods his head from side to side, thinking it over.  
"Yeah… but she's really full of herself." Jade sighs.  
"So are you! Okay well what about Emily Whittington? She's got a pretty wicked body." Ryder looks reluctant.  
"Yeah but she's friends with Tori – she probably hates me." Jade rolls her eyes.

"God, let that shit _go_, that was like a year ago. And _Tori_ forgave you didn't she? C'mon Emily's cool. Just ask her out."  
"Yeah …but Emily's not-"  
"Not _what_? Ryder stop being a pussy and just ask her. She's hot, she's funny and she's _insane_ at guitar. _There,_ you have something in common. Stop making excuses and just do it. _Okay?"_ He sighs and bites his lip for a second.  
"…Fine."

"Good. Now turn this shit off and put on a good film. I seriously cannot take this anymore."  
"No, no, no, wait. This is really good bit here. Melissa's about to take a shower where the murderer's waiting with a hatchet."  
Jade sighs, flicking popcorn at him.  
"Perv."


	10. Reflexes

_I don't own Victorious_

* * *

"Jade, can I talk to you?" asks Beck at lunch the next day. The whole group freezes, staring.  
"I gotta go …make some eggs." Says André, getting up, looking freaked.  
"Yeah me too." Agrees Tori, wide-eyed, leaving with him. "Those eggs won't cook themselves." She smiles weirdly and scurries away. Robbie gets up after them.  
"I'll help." He stammers. "With the eggs. …Y'know to cook them? In…in a pan. …Okay bye." and scuttles off. Cat stays where she is, eating her chicken sandwich absentmindedly, not paying anyone the least bit of attention. Jade rolls her eyes at her but doesn't protest. Mainly because Cat was the only one who didn't come up with some lame-ass excuse to give them privacy. Even if it was because she was too busy poking her bread to notice.

"What?" she asks Beck indifferently. He glances at Cat awkwardly and then looks back at Jade, running his hand through his hair. He's nervous, acknowledges Jade, making her frown in confusion. Beck isn't nervous.  
"I… I was just wondering how you were doing." She raises her eyebrows, because they're both playing the cool game where they both pretend they couldn't care less but her eyes are staring into his and she can't help but remember lying on his bed, listening to him play guitar and staring into those same eyes. But now, this was so much different. They were still the same intense kind brown eyes. But how could it be _this_ different?

"I'm fine. And you?" she asks, indifferent as a tennis ball but inside screaming at the whole production of bullshit. Why is he asking this? Does he miss her? Is he just rubbing in how _over her_ he is by asking her _'over-it'_ questions? Is he just being stupid caring _considerate_ Beck who just wants to check up on her because he's _naturally_ that nice? Or does he feel like he _has_ to ask her to keep his perfect rep of not caring?  
He just nods slowly, not breaking eye contact, even when Cat starts sipping her juice out her straw noisily.

"I'm pretty good. What you been up to?" And he's smiling nicely, like they're just casual friends, but he's seen her sobbing on the floor of his RV and he's made out with her desperately, pressed against her back door, pinning her hands above her and he's made her laugh, lying on the grass behind the school at lunch – her eyes crinkling up adorably and her mouth opening, the sound like honey.  
She nods back at him, calmly, and for some reason her composure makes him notice how her jet black hair makes her skin look perfect snow white and her eyes are so big and framed by her long lashes and her lips are so full and painted perfect red.

Cat starts pulling her sandwich apart and licking the butter off the bread staring up at the pretty clouds. She glances around and realises everyone has gone. Jade's talking and her head looks over to listen to her.  
"Oh, this and that. I've been singing in a few places. …And my new play is opening next week."  
"Wow." His eyebrows rise, looking impressed. "You're doing some really cool things" And why is their conversation so forced and at 'weather-interest-levels' because they could talk for hours about the reasons why Miley Cyrus will never be a respected actress and her worries about her little brother and why he should attempt to be serious about his guitar career because 'you're so good at it babe.' But now they're silent and he feels like asking her about mortgages or tax income or something.

"Thanks" she replies "And you?"  
"Oh Jade, you were so good when you sang in Coffee and Cream last night!" Cat interrupts. "She got a standing ovation you know" she nods proudly at Beck like a grade-obsessed mom. Beck chuckles.  
"I'm not a bit surprised." He compliments. "I didn't know you were singing – I would have come." He smiles at Jade but her expression is blank as she's thinking 'would you? Would you really?'

"Cat!" hisses Tori, who's just ran back and hiding behind the coffee stall as if Jade and Tori couldn't see her. "Cat, get _over_ here!" She's angry, but Jade thinks, it's not as if Cat hasn't heard Beck whisper sweet things to Jade before, or heard them scream abuse at each other at the top of their lungs before or heard their personal family drama stories before. What was one more forced conversation to Cat? But she jumps up good-naturedly taking her licked bread with her.  
"Kk!" she agrees passively and skips over to Tori, who drags her away looking flustered. Really, do her and Beck _look_ like they're having a vicious argument? She probably just doesn't want to have another scenario like that last time Beck and Jade blew up at her house. No one wants a replay of _that._

"So." Continues Jade, looking back at Beck. "What did you say you were up to?"  
"Oh, not much. I'm going to be an extra in the new Nicholas sparks movie." Her eyes widen because she didn't know that and he's _always_ wanted to be a part of a big love story like that.  
"Wow." She says, real impressed this time. "The next notebook is it?" And she grins cheekily and he chuckles back at her because they watched the notebook together and he wouldn't shut up about how he's going to be in the notebook 2. "Dream come true hey?"  
"Well, I'm hardly Noah's son, come to continue his father's legacy of true love" because seriously, that boy was obsessed or something because he had even started writing the script of the notebook sequel last year. "I'm 'man at café #2'"  
"They might give you a spin-off, you never know. 'Man at Café #2 chases Girl at flower shop #4?' It could work." And he smiles, because the flower shop girl was _in_ his script, and he didn't know that she actually _read_ it.

And she's smiling back …but _don't_ reach over and hold her hand Beck! Nothing's changed. You're not together anymore. She's just a _friend_. And that's nice sure, but why does he feel like he just won the lottery, but threw the money in a river?  
"Jade?" he voices after a little pause. "Are we gonna be okay?" And she opens her mouth and doesn't answer and his stomach twists, weirdly terrified that's she's going to say 'no'. Though why would she? They were Beck & Jade. But he panics and continues before she can speak.

"Because, y'know how good we get on? Even just as friends. We don't have to cut each other out. We can still go the movies on Fridays and… and hang out. Just like you do with André and I do with Tori. Yeah? We've known each other for like, four? Was it four years? And me and you have too much –"  
"Beck." She cuts him off because he's rambling and she's never known him to ramble even though his face is the same predictable hard edge mask, only his eyes flashing worriedly. "We'll be okay. "We can... still hang out." Even though she can't picture them sitting in a dark movie theatre and not holding his hand. "Even if we're not Beck&Jade… we're still Beck and Jade. You won't lose me okay?" she says quietly because she knows that's what he's worried about, though he'd hardly tell her.

She looks up at him her beautiful big eyes gazing at him and he's never heard her say anything sincere or nice to him since they were together. He nods, pacified.  
"Okay. Thanks Jade." And he gets up to give her a hug because he wants to see what it feels like now they've broken up and he's trying to say thanks for putting his mind at ease and he just misses the way her fingers clutch the back of his shirt and how her neck smells like sweet coffee and coconuts and how her hair feels silkily smooth on his hands.

But it catches her off guard because she didn't expect it and anyway they're _not_ together now, so her chin just settles neatly on his shoulder and her hands just gently touches his back. And he wants to kiss her neck because that's how he tell her he loves he sometimes, but he's not supposed to love her now, is he, and maybe it's just a reflex action and he doesn't _actually _want to kiss her. Right? Right. Sure. That's it. It's just a reflex.


	11. Runaway

_I don't own Victorious._

* * *

Jade slams the door home from school, dreading the interior. Her mom was back – her car was parked in the driveway. But so was her dad. His stupid Porsche Panamera was lit up like neon sign when she turned the corner onto her street, and her stomach immediately dropped. If his stupid wife's there, she'd ring André and tell him to meet her at Sea World. Or Cat and they'd go to Gondolas.

Her heartbeat starts racing the moment the door closes behind her and she drops her bag at her feet – she can hear screams and breaking china and her father's roars of '…pay for her _fucking_ school of sing-songs and _bullshit_.' Excreta excreta. She breathes out raggedly and runs her hands through her hair – a Beck habit. Okay, she wasn't waiting around to see if Sarah was here or not – she was leaving.

But she had to go find Danny to bring him with her. She usually found him under his bed with his hands over his ears or in the bathtub which he filled with his teddies to muffle the screams. And she'd sigh and pick him up and place him on his feet and tell him to _grow up_. But she'd hold his hand tight on the way down the stairs and all the way to the park or the ice-cream shop or sometimes, to Beck's where they'd spend the evenings playing monopoly and eating pizzas.

But they couldn't go to Beck's anymore and Danny wasn't under his bed. His wasn't in the bathtub or in his wardrobe or tucked up in her bed or outside in the shed. He wasn't anywhere. So Jade sucked it up and, although nervous, marched confidently into the kitchen to find her father pointing a finger in her mom's face and explaining to her why she had obtained all the characteristics of a bad mother.

"…And don't get me _started_ on your job!" he's roaring. "How do you expect to pay for –"  
"Mom." Voices Jade, cutting him off. Her mom turns to look at her looking exhausted but furious and even though Jade hasn't seen her in weeks and this is the expression she uses to greet her with, she doesn't mind too much. It was nice to see her.

"Mom, where's Danny?" she asks, not making eye contact with her father. The dick.  
Her mom breaths out unsteadily, obviously overwhelmed by her emotions and walks over to Jade, awkwardly patting her arm.  
"Hi baby. Long-time no see eh?" she smiles tiredly, the bags under her eyes looking more pronounced. "No, I've haven't seen Danny yet. Should he be home from school by now?" she asks making Jade roll her eyes internally at her need to even _ask_ that question.  
"Yeah mom. It's five o' clock. School finishes at three." Her mom nods her head, comprehendingly while her father curses under his breathes.

"For God's sakes Lorraine, what kind of mother doesn't even know what time her kid finishes school?" spits her father harshly. Her mom's head whips round, ready to fly in to defend herself but Jade cuts her off.  
"_Hey_! Shut up for five minutes _okay_?" She shouts at them. "Okay." Calmer now. "I just want to confirm – neither of you have seen your son, correct?" Her mom shakes her head simply but her father reluctantly speaks up, sounding gruff and in _no way_ making contact with Jade.  
"I saw his bag by the stairs when I walked in." he mutters.  
Shit. Jade's hands run though her hands again.

"Fuck." She mutters.  
"Jade West!" admonishes her mom, sounding like her tone was picked up from a stereotypical mother on a children's TV show. "_What_ have I told you about cursing in the kitchen?" And Jade thinks – 'nothing.' And anyway, even if she _had_ told her not to curse – why would the kitchen be the sacred, no-curse zone? Do the carrots have a particular dislike for swearing? But she doesn't protest because her mom is saving her pride in front of her father, and really what was the difference between that, and her with Beck?

"I think Danny's run off again." She sighs, like she's _over_ him doing this by now, but all she's thinking is – 'Oh God, oh God oh God.' Her mom bites her lip worriedly, her doe eyes staring naively up at her and her father shakes his head, probably about to give her mom a roasting about looking after Danny properly. So Jade glares at them and hisses:  
"No, don't worry yourself. _I'll_ find him." she mutters. "Again." and leaves her parents to continue their screaming match, despite the fact that their eight year old son has – once again, run away.

She slams the front door shut behind her and then her eyes slowly sweep from the right side of the street, all the way over to the left, as she once again wonders that very same question. 'Where could he be?' She usually found him after a few hours, but that fear never went away, because all she could think about were the cars, the cars, the cars. Or worse, an abduction. Or – shut up Jade, you're not helping.

She whips out her phone, to ring Beck to help her look as usual, her parents screams creating the tense atmosphere in the background and she dials Beck's number.  
"C'mon c'mon c'mon." she mutters frantically. It's on the second ring when suddenly, she remembers - he's not her boyfriend and what in _God's name_ is she _doing_? So she quickly goes to hang up before a voice suddenly answers, "hello?" She breathes out, to prepare and slowly puts the phone to her ear squeezing her eyes shut in mortification.

"Beck?"  
"Jade? Are you okay?" He sounds worried. _Of course_, she thinks bitterly, _now whenever she rings him, it has to be because something's wrong doesn't it?_ Or maybe he can hear the panic in her voice – he always knows.  
"Beck. Listen, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to ring you." She's embarrassed, and it's not like he's her only option, she has other friends, but he was just a _reflex_ action.

"It's just I usually call you when this happens and …I'm sorry I didn't think this through." And she's kicking herself internally. Well done Jade, well done. No one looks desperate here huh. "Look, I'll talk to you later." And she goes to hang up once again, but he interjects quickly.  
"Wait, Jade." He sounds worried and he doesn't sound any different to one month ago. Not that he should. "What's wrong b-."  
_He nearly said babe_, she thinks. _He nearly called me babe_. But he didn't. So that's good. That's good right?

"It's Danny." She declares. She can hear his breath catch.  
"He's run off." He's states. She nods, but then remembers that they're speaking via audio communications.  
"Yeah. Look, don't worry, I'll find him." But her eyes scan the block again and her parents screams are somehow getting more harsh and shrill and it makes her bite her lip in anxiety.  
"Where are you?" he asks immediately and she can hear a door slam in the background.  
"At my house."  
"Stay there. I'm coming" And hangs up.


	12. Lollipops

_sorry I didn't update. I went away for a few days for a college open day. And I had this piece edited but I didn't save it so now it's pretty shit even though I attempted to add in the lost edits. Ah sure. I tried.  
I don't own Victorious._

* * *

He's driving fast, his expression hard and his eyes blazing and although he still has one hand on the wheel, the other is placed awkwardly on the dash and not twined with her hand over the handbrake.  
"Ok, where should I go next?" he asks.  
"Uh… maybe the park? I found him there once, under the slide."

"Okay." He says reassuringly, like he knows definitely that _that's_ where Danny'll be, because although she sighs and plays with her phone, her eyes are huge and watching, always watching, because he knows really, how scared she is. And it's just like when they were together, but he's not holding her hand and he didn't kiss her when he met her. He turns into the park car park and Jade bolts out and rushes, just fast enough so she can still claim that she doesn't care.

"Danny?" she calls, her voice decidedly _not_ cracking, opening the park gate, and stepping onto the spongy rubber flooring. "Danny?" she strides over to the slide to search underneath.  
_Shit._ He wasn't there. It's goneness hit her harder than she would have thought. It's emptiness. It's nothingness. How could _nothing_ cause this much pain? But she looks over at Beck hastily jogging over to her and admonishes herself on the stupidity of the question.

"Not there?" She shakes her head. He runs his hand through his hair as he watches her check every inch of the park, very _un_-frantically. _Ish_, he thought. Her eyes are nervous and her hands are relentless, tapping obsessively in the air and her hair is long and messy, flowing behind her. About now would be the time when he would grab her by the waist and make her look and him and promise her that '_we'll find him baby. It's okay, we'll find him, I promise, I can feel it.'_ And her big blue eyes would nod, because she trusted him _so_ much so he'd pull her close, wrapping his arms around her tight and burrowing his face into her hair.

But he just watches her this time and doesn't touch her because it just feels like there's an invisible wall between them that he can't break down. He smiles a little, despite the situation when he realises how easy it was for him to come here. How the moment she rang, he wasn't thinking of the break-up or how weird it was that she was calling, only that something was wrong with her. And he slammed the door of his RV and jumped into his car, driving full speed to her house without thinking twice. Even when he wasn't hers, he was still whipped.

She approaches him, her face expressionless and shakes her head. Eyes silently screaming 'He's not here Beck. I'm scared. I'm so fucking scared' and he hates that they're broken up so much, if even for this one moment because he can't even try to make it better now. The most do is speak to her and tell her things - not that _everything will be fine jade what you worrying for?_ Because according to her, that's bullshit and she doesn't want to hear it. But he tells her:  
"Okay Jade. That's okay, let's check somewhere else. Got any ideas? When have we not found him Jade? It's _never_ happened." But he does hold her hand on the way back to the car and she doesn't protest.

They sit in the car, staring out the window at nothing while he questions her about where to look next, all business.  
"We've checked Gondolas ice-cream shop, the lake, the bridge and the park. Where else?" He presses earnestly. Jade opens her mouth but nothing comes out and she looks up at Beck hesitantly.  
"Jade?"  
"He… he could be at yours." She suggests. "I found him there once, when I went over to ask you to help me and you were out. He was sitting on the steps of your RV, waiting for you." Beck blinks.

"Waiting for _me_?" She nods.  
"He likes you. You play board games with him when mom and dad are fighting. And you give him lollipops…Well. Gave." She corrects.  
"Jade…"It sounded so critical, when she used past tense like that but she didn't mean it in that way.  
"Let's just go" she says and he nods and looks away to start the car when her phone rings. She fumbles to get it and flips her hair before answering.

"Hello?"  
"Jade?"  
"Ryder? Hi listen, I can't talk I –"  
"Jade." He cuts her off and his voice is weird. "Jade, I'm at the hospital."  
…

It's weird how one word can throw away your will to live. He said hospital. _Hopsital._ Oh Jesus. Oh Christ Almighty, _please_. Please God, _please_.

"With Danny." He continues. Of course. Of course with Danny. She sucks in a breath and Beck grabs her hand and she can't remember her name, and everything has suddenly stopped and it's like Ryder's voice is the voice of God, telling her whether or not she has any reason for living anymore. If something, anything happened to her brother... And Beck's frozen beside her, clutching her hand and staring into her eyes like he's staring into the face of Jesus Christ himself.

"Jade? He's alright Jade. Okay? He's had a knock to the head but the doctors say that he's got no brain damage." Jade winces, and Beck's hand squeezes tighter.  
"Brain damage?" she whispers making Beck jump towards here, about an inch from her face, staring into her eyes frantically. She could count his eyelashes and her hand is losing feeling.

"Yeah, they say the scans came back fine. Look, do you want me to drive down and pick you up?" he offers. Jade swallows and opens her mouth, trying to speak.  
"No." she says hoarsely and then coughs, trying again, clearer this time. "No, it's fine, I'm coming now. Where are you?" And he gives her the ward and the room number and tells her that everything is going to be okay and she just replies "yes" and hangs up.

Beck immediately grabs her wrists forcefully and makes her look at him. "Jade? Jade what happened?" He's scared, she notices.  
"Ryder has him. He's in the hospital." He lets go of one of her wrists to run his hand through his hair.  
"What happened to him?" He demands. "Jade." She shrugs, her eyes getting more and more panicked and although she tries to stop it showing, it bubbles into her voice.  
"I don't know, I don't know. He said he got a 'bump to the head.' What the hell does that mean?"  
Beck's eyes filled with sympathy and he stares at her not knowing how to make it better. He feels like his status of 'ex-boyfriend' has taken the source of his powers because now he doesn't know what to do. So he just grabs her hand again and squeezes it so hard he's sure he hurt her a little and says:  
"Okay. Let's find out." And reaches for the keys to start the ignition.

She runs flat out to room 316, not even trying to pretend that she's not scared as hell right now because it's so obvious she is. Beck's running right behind her feeling uneasy, watching Jade's feet move with some uncontrollable force and her hair fly behind her in panic, and it makes him feel so weird, watching her be scared. She's like a terrified little deer, running uncontrollably, hysterically away. But she was running to something now.

Ryder's waiting for them at the end of the hall, outside the room, standing there like a lighthouse, a beacon. He seems to give Jade incentive and motivation and reason because she runs at him and flies into his waiting arms. Beck stops running and stares at them. He doesn't understand. And Ryder's hands are locked around her back and his head burrowed in her neck. Like Beck used to do. They look...like they fit, like they're united. He doesn't like it.

Jade pulls away to stare at him.  
"Ryder what's going on?"  
"Jade, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry Jade. It was a car… he was hit by a car." Her hands fly up to her mouth though her face is frozen and giving away nothing. His voice is hoarse and cracked and he has to hold Jade up to stop her from falling though his own hands shake on her arms. She can feel a sure hand slide onto her hip and pull her towards him and his other hand grab her hand and twine his fingers with hers holding it till her fingers turned white- it was Beck. He ignores Ryder, his eyes are locked on her blank ones.

"What happened?" she whispers staring at Ryder but squeezing Beck's hand just as tightly.  
"He... he was sitting on the steps of my house, waiting for me to come home. And I'm on the other side of the street when I spot him. So… so he jumps up…and he runs straight across the road to me. …He didn't even see it coming it just…" Beck's arms tighten around her waist and she looks up at him and his stares back as if speaking telepathically with their eyes. Their frozen piecering eyes. That say 'it happened. It finally happened'. Because after all their worried frantic searches for her little runaway brother, this was always the one thought in the back of their mind. That something as awful as this could happen. And now it did, and they were here. Ryder drops his hands from her arms.

"So what's happening now? Is he okay?" she questions. Her eyes were still blank, not giving away anything as she tears her eyes away from Beck's and back to Ryder.  
"He's okay. He was hit on the head but there's no brain damage. He's got a dislocated shoulder but the doctor pushed it back in. He's sleeping now." He pays no attention to Beck either except for the odd swift glance at his hand on her hip. He looks back at Jade's tight mouth and reaches up to grasp her other hand gently, but she squeezes back so tightly he wonders how such a delicate hand could contain so much power.

"I want to see him." Ryder nods and gestures to the room behind him dropping her hand to let her enter. Jade immediately walks inside with Beck at her heels, his hand in hers as if conjoined in some way, leaving Ryder swallowing hard at the threshold, who only follows them when he hears Jade's quiet gasp coming from inside.


	13. Mommy

_Hi. Your comments are cute. (: Just saying. Also I don't mind any criticism. At the start I sort of thought I'd hate it but I do take it on board usually, so if anyone wants to explain why I'm shit, go ahead. I don't mind...Like at all. So at the start of this story someone commented something like that they've seen 1001 fics when Beck's a dick for not opening the door and though they said this _was_ different, I wanted to show it drove him mad cause I knew exactly what they meant. I don't like being 'common.' lol.  
Also I made a mistake in the first chapter. I think. I never saw TWC but I saw gifs of it and I think Jade counts 1 to 10 instead of backwards. Also I can feel there's a room of people not caring about that but anyway. Random flash of OCD... lol._  
_I don't own Victorious._

* * *

The front door slams of the house and his mom comes out from the kitchen in her dressing gown with an incredulous expression.  
"Beck? Where've you been? It's two in the morning!" Her face is worried but kind, - she was the kind of mom who just _had_ that sweet face.  
"Sorry. I was at the hospital." His voice is hoarse and tired. His mom suddenly freezes.  
"Hospital?" she mouths and immediately moves forward to grab his shoulders and scrutinize every inch of him trying to figure of what was wrong with her son. He grabs her frantic hands and pulls them away from his shoulders.

"It's fine mom. It's not me. Jade's little brother got knocked down by a car." She freezes again and stares into his kind brown eyes, so similar to her own.  
"Oh Christ. Is he okay?" He nods.  
"He's fine, thank God. Apparently he got knocked to the head but the most he has is a dislocated shoulder." He shrugs and lets go of her hands. "Everything's fine." His mom breathes out, her eyes still alarmed and reaches up to stroke his cheek.  
"Oh Beck. That's awful. How's Jade coping?" He swallows.  
"She's upset. This was always the one thing she was afraid of. God, her _face_ mom…"

She drops her hand to hold her face, staring at him, pity soaking her eyes as he runs both hands through his hair in obvious distress. His mom's face is so helpless and worried that he looks up at her and gently pats her arm in reassurance.  
"Beck" she whispers sympathetically and endearingly, not knowing how to make everything better as she follows him into the kitchen. He sits down at the kitchen table and she makes him a cup of tea, glancing at him pitifully every so often.

"Thanks" he says as she sets the tea by his hand and sits down opposite him, holding her own mug.  
"What were you doing there anyway? Did Jade call you?"  
"Yeah. He went missing see so I was helping her find him. And then she got the call that he was in the hospital, so I stayed with her 'till Danny got to go home." His mom bit her lip, hesitating on what to say next, seeming reluctant.

"I thought you… weren't together anymore." He blinks.  
"We're not. But she was scared. You think I'd let her do it alone?" He frowns incredulously, and she coughs a little.  
"No Beck no, of course not. I'm just worried… that you're not letting her go. You did tell me you weren't getting back together this time didn't you?" He just nods because if his speaks his voice will croak and he doesn't want to be the reason of his mom's frown lines anymore.

"Baby I'm just so worried about you." Her voice becomes passionate and honest as she leans forward, her eyes locked on his. "You've not been sleeping, you've been taking midnight drives for hours and you've stopped eating."  
"I eat." He protests. She smiles sadly.  
"Honey you _don't_. Tell me, when was the last time you finished a whole meal?" He opens his mouth to answer but quickly shuts it.  
"You're killing yourself over a girl that _you're not with_ anymore." She clarifies. "And look, _one_ phone call from her today and you rush off to be with her, and forget about anything else. You were meant to drop your nana off at the airport this evening." Beck sat up straight, running a hand through his hair.  
"Oh shit. Mom, I'm sorry I forgot."  
"It's okay honey, I understand. She got a taxi, don't worry. I don't blame you for rushing off if the little boy was hit by a car. Not at all." She laughs weakly and then stops suddenly deadly serious, in her funny way that always makes Beck laugh. But not tonight.

"I'd probably give out to you if you didn't go, but you're not coping honey. This isn't even about today. This is about _everyday_ since the break-up." He half smiles but it didn't show in his eyes.  
"Mom, I'm fine." She doesn't speak for a minute and he finds it weird having this conversation with his mom at at the kitchen table which is covered with his mom's sketches. The bulb over the table is their only source of light and it shines on them like a spotlight, making it look impossibly dark outside and to Beck, the silence is almost eerie.

"You're not fine Beck" she whispers eventually, her soft nut brown hair untidily framing her kind face, his stomach twisting with guilt at how much he was worrying her. She shakes her head slowly staring him out. "You're not fine" she says more forcefully, though it didn't fit with her gentle voice. He tries to speak again, opening and closing his mouth like a fish, wondering how she'd take it if he tried to blow it off again. _Not well_, he thought. His mom was smart like that.  
"We're friends now mom. Everything's cool okay?" He smiled his boyish grin, as if he was as calm as death and his mom was acting like a child, like he does with most of his friends. It was a good method. But not for the woman who sat in front of him in a purple dressing gown holding a spotty cup of tea, who saw straight through him. She reminds him a lot of Cat and her child-like eyes that saw through every bluff he pulled.  
"I didn't say anything the night you got home from Tori's Beck. And you were _so_ hurt that night. I thought I'd give you a few weeks. But you're just _not_ getting over her hun."

He thinks back to that night. Andre dropped him home after the tensest home ride _ever_. Beck didn't speak the whole time and André didn't bother with starting conversation because he could feel the anger radiating off him and if he knew his best friend any, it was in his best interest to shut the hell up. Especially after his ninth vodka, conversation was pretty much a death sentence.

"Are you gonna be okay Beck?" he asked as he clumsily stumbled out the car. "We can go out somewhere if you just want to vent or something." He didn't think it was a good idea but he didn't really like leaving him in this state. And he _was_ in a state. Beck just shook his head looking in the passage window at André.  
"No. Go home man." André didn't move for a moment, assessing his friend with a frozen expression and dark eyes. But then he said quietly:  
"Okay man. Call me if you want to talk." Beck nodded and he drove away.

And he was left alone in the light of the streetlamp beside his house in the empty driveway. Alone. Because now there was no Jade was there? She wasn't sitting on the steps of his RV in ripped black tights and one-shoulder navy sweater wearing a contemplative expression waiting for him. And she wasn't there to say 'You gonna let me in then Casanova? I've been here for like half an hour.' It was just him. André had taken his truck home because he had no ride and it wasn't like Beck was in any fit state to drop anyone home. There was no way he was going into that RV tonight because that's where Jade would go at three am when she couldn't sleep and that's where she showed up when he didn't answer her calls because fishy number twelve had died. And the drawer on the top left was Jade's and he was pretty sure her leather jacket was sprawled over the bed and her drawing pads scattered the floor. It was full of Jade.

So he left his driveway and walked down his street, illuminated every ten feet with streetlight. And he walked down the block and then down the next one and then down the next one. Jade filled his mind and he thought about exactly how three years with Jade led him here. He didn't really know why they fought because she was could be the sweetest little thing when she wanted – buying him a new fish every time one died, even though he knew she hated them, and giving him a box of brownies when he didn't get the role he wanted. (Sure she made Cat make them, but _still_.) He couldn't help worry that her attitude lately had something to do with something that happened at home but somehow he doubted it. She'd have told him, wouldn't she? It was just hard to have a girlfriend who over analysed everything he said and would hurt other people's feeling wherever he were to take her. Maybe they did need a break or something.

But by the time he got home at five a.m., all he could think of was Jade's expression when he told her he wasn't happy with their relationship. He didn't mean he didn't love _being_ with her. He glanced at his RV when he walked past but couldn't bring himself to open the door so he continued to the front door of his house, hoping not to wake his parents. But when he entered the kitchen to run himself a glass of water, he noticed a figure to his left in the setee area. He turned sharply and realised it was his mom. She was lying on the couch, an old knitted blanket draped over her. He walked towards her and bent down at eye level.

"Mom?" She was asleep, breathing heavily. His mom was young for her age – she had him at sixteen - and very beautiful, her delicate eyebrows arched over her closed eyes and her full lips _just_ agape and pouted. But right at that moment she looked years older as her eyebrows were pulled up in the middle and her mouth turned down at the corners, even in sleep. He put his hand up to her shoulder.

"Mom?" He said again softly and shook her gently. She opened her eyes lightly, her doe eyes focusing on him and he noticed that her eyelashes were dark and wet.  
"Beck?" She whispered and then suddenly jolted upright. "Where have you been?" He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out – he didn't think she'd have noticed - he did live in a separate dwelling after all.  
"I just went for a walk. Clearing my head." He explained. Her pupils dilated in fury, about to lay into him but she caught herself and her expression changed. She looked almost scared and she bit her lip.

"Mom?"  
"I didn't know where you were" she blurted out. "I didn't know where you were and it was two in the morning. Your truck wasn't there."  
He smiled a little trying to calm her though smiling was the last thing he felt like doing. He was by the couch with his mom, he knew, but he was so strongly aware that Jade's Bob Dylan t-shirt was in his t-shirt drawer right at that moment. '_Don't you want to take it with you?_' he had asked. '_Take it home?'_ But she had just shrugged unconcernedly. '_Whatever. I'm already wearing your shirt. I'll leave it here.'_ And he grinned at the back of her head because it was like she was saying that _this_ was her home.

"I got nervous" his mom was saying bringing him back with her wide worried and worrying eyes.  
"I'm sorry mom" he tried to pacify her. "André drove home in it. I couldn't because I – uh. I wanted to walk." His mom nodded seeming oblivious to his poor explanation of his (probably obvious) intoxication.  
"I got nervous" she repeated as if he hadn't spoken. "So I called your friends." He nods but then froze.  
"You – you didn't call, _Jade_ did you?" he questioned, his body rigid. She bit her lip and nodded.  
"But she didn't answer." Beck breathed out a breath of relief. His mom breathed in. "So I called André. …He told me she walked out Beck." She stared at him for confirmation.

Did it suddenly get thirty degrees colder in here or was that just him? The silence was so loud and his mom's eyes were so worried and intense that for a moment he wondered what she would think if he shot himself in the head. He stared back at him mom but there was no way he was able to speak. What would he say? 'Yeah mom, she's gone. Jade's gone and she's not coming back.' He _couldn't_.  
"Beck?" she presses the pity almost spilling over her eyes. He had literally become a statue and his throat felt tight so he swallowed, and then swallowed again. Because for some reason, his eyes were suddenly filled with water and his lips shook, though his expression was still blank. His mom threw her hand to her mouth and then to his cheek and leaned forward.

"I'm, _so,_ _sorry_ baby." She articulated as if good enunciation would make it better. He stayed, shaking and shell-shocked and exhausted until his eyes suddenly spilled over and his mom sucked in a breath and threw her arms around him, stroking his hair.  
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry" she murmured like a mantra. He didn't make a sound except for sharp ragged breaths inwards, sounding like he was choking. He would never let anyone see him like this, and even though this was his mom, he had to pull away from her after only ten seconds. He wiped his face hastily with the back of his hand and his expression snapped back to his carefully controlled mask. His breath was slow and deliberate, controlled.

"I didn't go after her." He told her.  
"_She_ left Beck. It wasn't your fault. It was her choice to leave." She defended, intent on extinguishing his distress, however impossible. He shook his head his expression drowning in regrets.  
"That's not how we work! I told her I wasn't happy with us and I upset her. So, I should've followed her shouldn't I? That's customary. I just hated the fighting _so much_ mom. I didn't mean I wanted… _this_." He finished.

"Maybe that wasn't a good way of working baby." He mom offered gently. "Maybe you'll both be happier this way." Beck looked away from wherever his eyes were at, a thousand miles away, to stare at his mom blazingly, eyes as black as the night. She bit her lip.  
"I'm sorry Beck." She stated formally. "I know what she was to you. I _know_. She was different."  
"She was different." He repeated in agreement.  
"And…" she began. "There's no way this is just another fight you have? No chance that you'll…get back together?" she asks hopefully – always the optimist. Beck shook his head slowly in defeat.  
"There's no chance mom. That's us – we're over. God, you should've _seen_ the look on her face."

He snaps back to reality to stare at his mom and curls his hands around his cup for warmth.  
"I'm fine mom." He assures. "You gotta stop worrying okay?" This makes her angry and she slams her cup back down on the table, tea spilling out the sides, staining the tablecloth.  
"You're _not_ fine Beck" she spits, like a child in a tantrum. But her eyes were so much more persistent. "You. Are. _Not_. Fine! You can tell me you're fine when you start sleeping again. Or eating again, or _talking to me_. You got it?"  
"Mom, come on –"  
"No Beck!" she insists. "Call her. Or ask her out to dinner. Or go outside right now to your RV and burn all her pictures. You gotta learn to be her friend, or get back together or try hating her – something. Other than just missing her, my son." Her voice got soft and he could barely hear her words.

"That's no way to live. That's no way to be."


	14. Okay

_I know, I know, I'm sorry. I started school and it's my second day back and I'm already 100% stressed and I have a project due in that I haven't started and nothing whatsoever is lovely anymore. So yeah, I just really want to finish this so it's not another thing on my things-to-do list. I think I have about four? ish? chapters left so hopefully I'll write them quick so I can finish it. So tell me what you think about Jayder or Bade. Thoughts? _

_Oh God, I just read over and edited this - I am SORRY. It's so stereotypical and common and predictable it's making me sick.  
I do not own Victorious._

* * *

It's next week and Danny's in his room being bored as hell, severely stunted by his sling. Meaning no x-box. Her mom screamed when Jade rang her from the backseat of Ryder's car, Danny's sleeping head in her lap but she assured her that he was fine. She had stroked his dark brown hair absent-mindedly, tiredly snapping at her that there was nothing wrong with him, while staring at the dark circles under his eyes and his tiny hand wrapped around the edge of her shirt, seeming not able to let go, even in sleep. Her mom had been in childlike tears by the time they got home but it was Ryder who carried him upstairs and it was Jade who sat by his bed all night, waking him every two hours to check he didn't have a concussion. But Jade didn't protest because it had been a long day and her mom had given him a kiss and made him a hot chocolate so he at least was pacified.

Ryder had been checking up on her, worried her paranoia would damage her mentally so he would come over practically every day with a lollipop and a batman film for Danny and then sit with Jade in the sitting room, playing with her guitar talking about nothing. It was nice, to have Ryder back in her life, she thought. Because he made her happy with his easy smile and stupid jokes and sometimes she forgot what that was like. But after the 'Danny incident' he'd act weird, she thought, not playing the guitar as much, just simply holding it and watching her, with a troubled look on his face. Not cracking stupid jokes, not lecturing her on how she'd be a more sucessful singer if she did a sexy pre-show dance, not even forcing her to watch another dumb-boy car/boob movie. He'd just sit and watch. She wasn't about to lose it if that's what he thought. Danny'd be okay.

At school she would sit beside Cat at lunch and Beck would still sit opposite them and he'd act different too. He shut up a lot and kept toying with his food, definitely, not looking at her. She watches as André shrewdly glances at him practically every six seconds, and sometimes she'll look up from her coffee to catch Beck staring at her. And he'd swallow and look down, though she'd look at him a while longer, noticing that his eyes were a little darker, his wrists a little bonier. He looked sick, but she couldn't bring herself to ask. They sat together, and acted together, and talked to their friends together, but they weren't _together_. They were like ships in the night. There, but never touching.

But on Friday Beck rang her. She's coming down the stairs, after giving Danny a bowl of spaghetti, which he looked puzzled at, probably wondering how other people with slings on their right arm wind their spaghetti around on their spoon, and she looks at her phone when her ringtone blares. The caller ID reads 'Beck' and she blinks at it a minute, feeling a very strong sense of deja vu, and for one _tiny_ millimtere of a second, forgetting they were not together. But she still answers it. Obviously. It doesn't really occur to her not to. It was _Beck._

"Hello?"  
"Jade?" his voice was muffled.  
"Well done, Beck, you've successfully rang the correct number by pressing the contact that clearly reads 'Jade'. Good for you." He's silent a minute.  
"Jade?" She sighs.  
"Yes?"  
"I… How's…how's Danny?" Another sigh.

"Fine. He's being a brat with that sling. If you hear about the murder of an eight year old by drowning in a kitchen sink – it wasn't me." He chuckles.  
"Kay. You always _were_ one with children."  
"Tell me about it. The little lights of my life aren't they?"  
"Mmmhmm. Especially that little girl ahead of you in the line for the new Black Thorn book."  
"Hey! She was like _six_, how would her tiny little brain even under_stand_ the book?"  
"She was twelve."  
"Uh huh, twelve my ass."  
"Yeah, well I think when you pulled out your _scissors_ she gained a few more years."  
"Ok_, no_. Don't try to blame me, they weren't even _sharp_."  
"You just mean you didn't sharpen them that _day_."  
"Well I didn't!"  
"They were still pointy. And metal."  
"Thank you Beck, for describing me the characteristics of a scissors. Like _I_ need more insight."  
"Whatever babe."

Woah. What was that? She doesn't really want to address it and she can tell that he's kicking himself for making that slip because he shuts right up. A silence.  
"So… why made you call anyway?" she asks, changing the subject to spare him. Whatever, she was feeling gracious.  
"Uh…yeah, I was just wondering about Danny." He's so grateful for the question. "When we usually find him, I'd take you back home. It was weird letting Ryder take you."  
"Well, we're not usually anymore, right Beck? And me and Ryder made up again so…"  
"Hmm. I thought you told me he was a dick."  
"Yeah. He is. But he's good to me." _Was that an accusation?_ Beck thinks. He frowns. _As in, he _wasn't?_  
_"Yeah but Jade, you remember what he did to T-"  
"To Tori? Uh huh, yeah I do thanks. He hurt _Tori_ pretty bad didn't he? Yeah, that makes _him_ such a dick doesn't it?" Definitely an accusation.

"Jade –"  
"And when is anyone ever going to get over that, that was last _year_!"  
"Okay, I'm sorry. I'm just looking out for you. As a friend right?" She flinches.  
"Sure. And as a _friend_, you can mind your own business."  
"Jade…" A pause and she's like 'c'mon you knob, say something. "I just… missed talking to you." And he sounds weird and vulnerable. Like he means it or something.  
"We can still be friends right? That's what we agreed on right?"  
"Okay." Still doubtful.  
"So I can still ring you. 'Cause we're friends, and…maybe you can reconsider coming to Tori's next week because we're okay now right?" because she refused to go after Tori let slip that Beck would be there.

"And… then maybe –" But her phone starts making a beep-beep beep-beep sound which means there's another call coming through.  
"Beck, listen, can I ring you back? I've got a call waiting." And he doesn't answer for a second, like he's disappointed or something but says:  
"Okay. Sure, cool. Okay, I'll see you later then." And she says:  
"Kay." And hangs up. Her mind went blank and she forgot about the waiting for a minute. She hastily pressed accept, her mind still foggy and delirious not paying attention to the next call.

"Hello?"  
"Jade?" God, why does everyone say that? If you've rung her number, you're more than likely to get _her_ on the phone for God's sakes.  
"Ryder? Are you okay?" because his voice is hushed and he doesn't sound his normal bright and bubbly (and fucking cocky as hell) self.  
"Jade. I'm outside your house."  
"What right now? Well come in you _penis_!" She can hear him shake his head somehow and rolls her eyes.  
"I'm out the back." And she laughs in annoyance.  
"And what, you expect me to open the door for you?"

She walks to the back door and hangs up the phone. She opens the back door and he's out there, leaning shiftily against the wall, the darkness almost swallowing him up, making him look threatening, frightening. But his eyes staring at her are pained and intense and through his hard expression she can still see Ryder's gentle face.  
"Ryder?" She steps down the steps, to look at him closer. "What's wrong?"  
He doesn't move, just continues to stare at her, the huge cold whites of his eyes about the only thing she can see.  
"I don't know." He whispers, sounding gruff.  
"Ryder." His tone's making her scared. "Did something happen?" He shakes his head slowly, because he knows the thing with her brother made her all the more paranoid.

"It wasn't your dad or anything?"  
"No, it wasn't my Dad. …It's just…" He doesn't finish so she moves closer to him and lightly touches his arm.  
"Just what?" she whispers back, his quiet tone automatically bringing down hers.  
"I went on date with Emily tonight." She blinks, wondering if this is the problem or is he just distracting her from _asking_ about the problem. She speaks patronisingly, though in her head rhyming off every single possible thing that could have happened.

"Oh. …And, how did it go?" He swallows.  
"Fine." She nods, staring back at him, his black leather jacket blending in with the darkness.  
"Right."  
"I don't like her." Jade still looks at him like he's crazy.  
"_O_kay."

"I _should_ like her though. She's a blonde and you know that's my type. She's tiny and she's got great legs and she really is _wicked_ at the guitar. She likes Whitney Houston and she eats like a trucker and she _loves_ One Tree Hill. But the thing is Jade… she's not you."

No ones moves and the silence deafens her but all she can see is Ryder's eyes. They're crystal blue, like hers and they scream honesty and vulnerability and it unnerves her.

"What?" she whispers. He couldn't have said that. This is Ryder, for God's sakes, they watch 2 broke Girls on Tuesdays and drive to the beach with her little brother on Sundays. Well they _did. _But he was her friend, her best friend. This wasn't supposed to happen.

"I know." He says, his blue eyes, never breaking contact with her, the rest of his face shunned in blackness, echoing the aura of his discomfort. He bites his lip cutely in that nervous habit he picked up when he was twelve.  
"I know, I know, I don't know what this is. I mean you're like my little sister y'know? I mean I was there when your hair was brown and you used to tie it in a plait. And you were there when I went through my hoodie and sneaker faze. And I was _definitely_ there when you started writing your first song about scissors and locks of hair. And seriously, we fight like there's no tomorrow because you're the only one to tell me when I'm being a dick and I'm the only one to tell you you're being annoying." His face leans closer to hers, and she can't speak because really _what the hell_?

"And we've known each other since the end of time and it's always been _Jade&Beck_ and me and some ...Courtney or Ashley or Jemma. But… I just can't get you out of my head. And when I was with Emily tonight… she… she just didn't tell me I look like a wanabee pop star, or offer me coffee flavoured chewing gum. And you're not supposed to feel this way about your sister. You're not. I know that. But why is it that on Saturday mornings you're the first person I think to call? Or the day you started talking to me was like the happiest day ever? Or when I thought you were trying to kill yourself that day, I literally wanted to _die?"  
_She blinks, unconciously leaning forward to him, shock covering her face, her hair blowing wildly as the quiet winds whips at her beautifully. She never knew. Every gaze he held, every hand he held, every sunday morning phone call, his crazed look when he pulled her up from the water - she never knew.

"You're just my dorky little sister who has a weird obsession with scissors, and who thinks she's a better actress than Natalie Portman… but _I can't get you out of my head_. And Jade, I _don't_ like you in that way…" His face scrunches up in distress and he looks down at his feet as if in pain. "..but the only problem is I do."

She can't speak, she just stares at his face. Everything about him is so familiar and he looks the same as he did when he was nine without hair gel or piercings, and his face is so bloody _cocky_ and arrogant, but right now it's not, and he's being sincere and blazing. He means it. He _means_ it.

But all she can think of is when Beck said the same thing to her but how different it was. It was different with Beck – he told her at a carnival the day her father left when her face was expressionless with pain and his was expressionless with distress for her. And there was screaming children around them and awful thoughts about her father kept revolving around and around in her head but all she could think of at that moment was Beck. No one else. But now it was quiet and intense and shocking. She couldn't understand. This was Ryder. _Ryder_.

Without thinking about it, she reaches up to palm his cheek because she just wants to calm the manic look in his eyes because she never likes his distress, and his eyes don't leave hers and they're blue, like hers and so intense and caring and Ryder. And -  
But suddenly he clutches her head and presses his mouth roughly to hers, moving against hers fervently. His lips are soft and his breathe is hot and he tastes like suagr and not like coffee. His hands in her hair are steady and strong and not running through it desperately. And she's very aware that she's kissing Ryder now and not Beck but weirdly she doesn't mind. Maybe subconsciously she always knew this would happen. So she responds to his passionate mouth against hers intensely, letting him push her against the wall and slowly snaking her arms around his neck, making his mouth move faster and his grip tighter.

His hands move down from her hair, one around her waist and the other cupping her face, pulling her in towards him, and this is freaking Jade West and what the fuck is he thinking, they met when they were fucking_ eight years old,_ but now, at sixteen, he's so crazy in love with her, he feels like he'd rather die than just be friends. Her her mouth is moving back against his desperate one and there's just _electricity_ everywhere and really, he knows she'd be a good kisser but is his mind _meant_ to go blank like this? Because all he sees, all he feels, all there is, will be, ever was is Jade, Jade, Jade. She's everywhere.

He moves away from her mouth, kissing feverishly across her jaw and down her neck and his arms pulls her tighter (if that's even possible, her breath heavy at his ear. Her leaves her neck to kiss her more intensely and sweetly and then pulls away looking at her. Her eyes are glinting brazenly and her lips are hinting a smile.  
"This is weird isn't it?" she asks, her eyes like a childs. His hands grip tighter on her hips, curving over her groves.

"We should do it," he nods at her. She cocks her head, and they're both still so aware that he's pressing her against the wall still and her hands are still loped round his neck.  
"Do what?" He looks down at her.  
"This. Me and you. We should do it."

And her mind automatically flashes to every moment of her and Beck's relationship, the good the bad and the ugly. Kissing in the janitor's closet, fighting in the janitor's closet. The day he took her fishing and he pushed her in, jumping in after her when they caught nothing. The week after they met and he spent all of lunchtime to read the script she wrote. When they were friends and he snapped when Jordan Tyler tried to go further with her on their first date. Screaming at him in the front seat of his car until tears slid down her cheeks. The day he showed up at her door to take her hand without saying a word and took her to a carnival the day her dad left. The nights he stayed up with her, while she'd put on film after film, dissecting acting and pointing out film errors, and joining in on her favourite quotes. Breaking up over Alyssa Vaughn. She remembers the afternoons they would just spend sitting together at the boardwalk at the beach for hours looking out over the water.

But then looks to the eyes of the boy she's known half her life who takes her to Shakespearean plays he thinks are stupid, and throws her lame ass birthday parties with black balloons and pass the parcel for god's sakes, and writes her short sweet songs a five year old could write and she swallows.

"Okay Ryder. Let's do it. Me and you."


	15. Simple

_I think... three more chapters now? It's hard to finish this, I've got a lot going on, but I know I'll be so happy if I finish it so I won't be stressing. My ending plan is so evil, I hope. My theory is, a good read can't be everything you wanted to happen, It needs to make you feel some kind of 'fmlkqedhjs' emotion of some sort. I hope this does it. I'm just that girl who can never seem to give stories happy endings - seriously I think every single fic up here has a bad ending, even if it seems good, beneath that, it's pretty awful. I mean, every story I write in English I always just have to kill a character off. But it's Victorious (which I don't own) so I can't. So tell me what you think and what you want to happen. They interest me.  
(You're reviews = so cute. Things I've learned from them = I will never be able to impersonate an American.) x_

* * *

"Hey Cat, why wasn't Jade at the Friday Night Concert last night?" Beck asks over lunch, trying to sound blasé, even though he's very aware that he's asked Cat four questions about Jade since lunch started. It's just weird not knowing how she is or what she's doing. He hasn't fully understood that now they were broken up, he should stop needing updates on her life. But when she had dark circles under her eyes or she wouldn't audition for the schools newest play or say, she was absent for a Friday Night Concert, he just _had_ to know why.

"Oh she was just on a date." Cat answered distractedly, cutting off her crusts.  
"A…A date?" His hands, for some reason turn to jelly and his eyes flash in unexpected rage and his stomach drops to his feet, as for some naïve reason, he can't believe that Jade would actually, y'know _move on_. Sure they broke up, but that wasn't meant to happen. And she _knew_ it. Tori's eyes immediately flash to Beck's, scrutinising his outraged expression, his hard set jaw, his black eyes.

"Uh huh. He's a senior and a _really_ good singer and he plays football and -"  
"A football player? Jade _hates_ football players."  
"Yeah but this particular football player happens to be _so_ hot! And he's always writing her cute little songs with his guitar!"  
"Right" He mutters, not really paying much attention, just furiously imagining _his_ Jade with some_ disrespectful,_ _manipulative,_ _licentious_ jock, buying _her_ coffees and ice-creams and sitting on her bed watching movies and taking her to _their_ place on the boardwalk near the beach. His hand clenches into a fist, something he picked up from Jade.

"Mmm hmm! Anyway he's taking her out on Friday to see the new Robert Dinero movie."  
"Cat, I think it's pronounced Robert, De _Niro_." Tori corrects kindly. Cat shakes her head slowly.  
"No. It's not." Tori decides not to press it.  
"So, Cat. Does Jade like him? I mean, are they serious or –"  
"Yeah! He's super nice and he goes to see all her performances, every time and when she gets off the stage he always kisses her on the cheek and tells her she did great and gives her flowers!"  
"Aw, that's so cute!" Tori gushes, with a stupid happy smile on her face, and her eyes light up softly like this is a _good_ thing.

"_I _went to see all her performances." Beck mutters like a moody toddler, weirdly trying to make _her_ friends remember that _he'd_ been a good boyfriend too.  
"You didn't go to see _all_ of them! You missed her clown one, and her well one, and her one about the airplane crash, and the one where she played a Russian duchess, and the time she sang in Karaoke-dokey with her guitar, and, and -  
"Okay so I missed a couple!"

Her accusations painted the _worst_ picture in his head, of Jade sitting on stage, singing and smiling and being _amazing_, like she does, and then of him being at home, watching TV, not caring. Even though he knows it wasn't like that. He was helping her out by distracting the Chinese woman during Well Wishes, and he was still in Canada when she performed Clowns don't bounce and a whole bunch of other_ legitimate_ reasons. But guilt doesn't work like that, particularly when you're obsessing over 'things you could have done to keep your girlfriend.'

"Does he even know that Jade _hates_ flowers?" he asks, intent on finding a flaw in this apparent perfect senior/jock/singer.  
"Well he doesn't buy her the _pretty _flowers." As if it was obvious. "He gets her black lilies, or purple fuchsias or pink daisies that come with scissors so she can cut them up."  
"Awwww, they are like the _cutest_ couple! And the weirdest. He knows her so well." gushes Tori, making Beck flinch violently at her words and curse internally.

The cutest couple. The worst couple. So many different titles for things that no one really knew anything about. It would be wrong to shove Tori, to get that stupid happy grin off her face, wouldn't it? Her grin made him feel like nothing, like Jade and Beck never happened. It always catches him off guard when reality would crash land on him and he'd remember that she wasn't _his_ anymore. And he has no claim on her. But he didn't expect this – that she'd _be_ with someone else. Someone else that wasn't him. She was meant to wait for him. She was _supposed_ to wait for him.

"Huh. And this _football player_, is just _happy_ to buy her black flowers, and watch her morbid plays?" Beck asks, like no-one in the world could possibly understand Jade like he could. They couldn't! a voice agrees in his head. She's his. Who else would she possibly tell her secrets to? Who else could possibly know that she secretly loves the lyrics of down to earth by Justin Bieber, and she has a birthmark shaped like an angels wing on her hip and she got her star tattoo when her father told her that she'd never be a star? But another voice in his head disagrees. But she's _not _yours anymore, it says. You're not hers to tell that to. And he swallows because he keeps forgetting that.

Cat nods in response to his question, sipping her smoothie distractedly.  
"Uh huh."  
"He's not weirded out by it?" he asks incredulously, because he wants this football player to be. He just wants it to be _him_, _only_ him, that Jade'll be herself around. That Jade'll whisper the awful things about her father to. That Jade'll be in love with.  
Cat shakes her head.  
"No, he thinks she's really cool, y'know being different and all. He thinks her scissor collection is 'adorable'." She says, finger quoting the last word.

"What kind of _football player_, has _no_ issues with a girl who's obsessed with death and scissors?" Mutters Beck to himself.  
"Oh well, Jade's sort of known this guys since she was a baby-Jade. They used to be like best friends in grade school."  
"Her best friend? Who is it Cat?" asks Tori curiously because who would this boy be that Jade actually _likes_, and Beck pretends he doesn't care but really, he's glancing at her intently from behind his coffee cup, knowing that the name that next comes out of her lips is just about to inherit a very irritated enemy.

"Oh it's Ryder Daniels."

Tori's mouth springs open and Beck's coffee tumbles to the floor spilling out from the cup, just like the colour from his face.

"What?" yells Beck, making Cat jump.  
"Ryder?" shrieks Tori. "Oh my God. Cat! Why didn't you tell us?"  
"Whatty? She asks innocently.  
"Jade West, _our_ Jade, _your_ friend, is going out with a complete _lady-killer_, and you don't think you should _mention_ that? Don't you remember what he did to me?" Cat shakes her head.  
"What did he do?" Tori groans so Beck answers, still in shock.  
"He _used_ her to get a good grade, Cat, seriously, why don't you remember this?"

Cat bites her lip for a moment thinking hard and then her face lights up in recognition.  
"Oh yeah! I remember! And one daaaa—aaaa-aaaa—aaaayyy, you'll be begging on your knees for maaaaaay, and one daaa-aaa-"  
"Cat! Now is not the time for singing!" Tori shrieks.  
"Oh so that's what the song was about. I was thinking Ryder looked familiar." She sips her smoothie and looks up to the sky, giggling at the cloud that looks like a giraffe.

Tori closes her eyes in frustration, while Beck lets his head fall into his hands.  
"What the heck is Jade _thinking?_ Why didn't she _tell_ us?" Tori asks, still appalled.  
"She told me she was nervous to tell you, Tori. She said '_there's rules about things like this_.'" She explains, trying to imitate Jade, but for some reason, speaking in the Southern Belle accent, Jade uses to mock Tori.

"She was _nervous_? To tell _me_?" asks Tori sounding flattered for some reason Beck didn't care about, a tiny pleased smile creeping up onto her face.  
"Cat, _seriously_, why would Jade _ever_ think it's a good idea to date him? He's a _heartbreaker_ Cat! …Are you not worried about Jade _at all_?" Beck persists, lifting his head from his hands to glare at her, thinking back to their hug he witnessed at the hospital and now, how badly he just wanted to get her away from him. She could be so fragile.  
Cat's little glossed lips open and looks at Tori worriedly.  
"Oh no! You think he's going to hurt her?"  
Tori, a committed opponent to this relationship now bites her lip hesitantly.

"Well, I dunno. Maybe… maybe he has changed. He seems like a much better guy now. He apologised to me…maybe he's different." Beck screws up his face incredulously.  
"Don't Tori, that's bullshit and you know it – even Jade claims he's a dick. You're just siding with them because Jade was sweet to you for once. Of course he's going to hurt her Cat" Beck spits angrily, turning back to her. "Seriously, he doesn't give a _shit_ about any of the girls he's dated, and _you_ just let Jade run away with him like it's not a big deal. _He's_ just going to use her and _she's_ going to get hurt. How would you feel then Cat?"

Cat's bottom lip dropped and dropped throughout his speech wobbling like jelly until Tori thought she was going to cry but she didn't, she just looks at Beck mournfully making him squeeze his eyes shut in heart-tearing guilt and breath out heavily.

"Cat. No. It's not your fault." he states forcefully, looking at her intently, trying to make her understand. "You're not to blame Cat, I'm just so frustrated that she's with him. …I just… don't get it." He drops his head in his hands to cover his face, creased up in anguish. Cat looks at him, still jutting out her bottom lip but it's stopped trembling and she looks more pitying than offended now.

"I just want Jade to stop being sad Beck" she whispers loudly, as if in some form of explanation, not knowing how to make him okay. "He makes her not sad – I just thought it was a good thing." Beck lift his head, rubbing his fingers across his mouth, hard, anxiously.  
"It is a good thing." He agrees. "I just wanted…" he trailed off, breathing out heavily.

"You wanted her to be happy with you." Finishes Tori, rubbing his back in her 'Tori way' of comforting. He makes a face of regret neither confirming nor denying. But all three of them knew it was true.  
"She _was_ happy with you." Informs Cat compassionately and Beck, however distressed, was very aware of them being such _girls_– in their flustered comforting hands and kinds words and sympathetic eyes. Jade would've just glanced up from her salad and told you to man up, but held your hand in secret underneath the table.  
"We fought so much." He says.  
"So? Me and Jade fight all the time. And Jade and Tori. And André and Jade. And Robbie and – y'know pretty much Jade and everyone. But that's just Jade. I know she still loves us. I know she still loves you."

He raises his eyes to meet Cat's intently.  
"Did she? Sometimes…. I don't know." Cat leans forward shaking her head.  
"She _does_. _Does,_ Beck. _I_ know. She just asks crazy sometimes. But she _does_." He sighs, lifting his head.  
"What about Ryder? Does she love him?" Cat pauses, biting her lip, looking like she would never answer him. He drops his head again.  
"Well that's a yes." His hand which is tangled in his hair on the top of his head tightens hard. "I should've opened the door. I know, that was a deal-breaker. I just wanted a change with us. We used to be so great." Tori's hand reaches up to grab his from his hair and bring it down to the table, squeezing... well, as hard as Tori could squeeze.

"I know Beck. We all hated the fighting too. But this is so much worse now. We'd take you fighting any day over this. Jade doesn't talk much anymore – and you've got such dark eyes, and we can all see it Beck, you're too obsessive over her. Your eyes don't look anywhere but Jades. It's not natural. You are unnatural without each other."

He shakes his head irritated and scoffs.  
"You're over-reacting Tori. I'm fine." He laughs at her over-concern but it's incincere. Tori doesn't respond at first, looking at him obviously not believinhg his dismissal. If she din't believe Jades she didn't believe his.

"Y'know, I understand, why you broke up with her, I do." She continues now. "It's tiring isn't it, fighting with someone all the time. I mean c'mon I live with Trina."  
Beck smiles a little.  
"I never wanted to break up Tori. You know that don't you? It just… in the moment… we both just got angry and next thing I knew she had slammed the door… and left." Beck runs his hand through his hair but takes a long sip of his coffee, because c'mon, he didn't give a shit. God.

"I think what you did was wrong beck. A girl can't be treated like she's not wanted and that's exactly how jade felt that night. When she stared at the door and it didn't open, that was basically you saying that you didn't love her anymore. She took it like that. Any girl would've taken it like that."  
"I didn't _mean_ it li- !" he begins but she cuts him off as if he hasn't spoken.

"And the day after, when I saw Jade at school, just the look in her eyes, and Cat being overly happy pretending everything was fine only confirmed that you did an awful thing. And I'd side with Jade over you. But I see these rings under your eyes and I see you throw a whole untouched lunch into the bin, and I see your eyes automatically cling to Jade's like a life ring… and I can't keep blaming you for this. You're my friend. And you pretend it's nothing but you're really hurting over her. I hate it."

"You're not happy" Cat adds, stunning Beck because after her 'cold shoulders' and cute angry glares and her distraught tears, he thought she'd never forgive him for breaking up with her best friend and he's faintly surprised to find himself impossibly grateful that she's finally talking to him like she actually _cares_. He missed her. "You're never happy Beck" she says sadly, concernedly.

He doesn't break eye contact with her, staring at her big brown eyes that has too much worry in them and the fact that a little girl with _that_ amount of glitter in her hair, should never be so worried. A few strands of red hair blow in the wind a little, causing some glitter to soar upwards and off to the side, dropping down like falling stars. They land his hands.

"I'm fine Cat" he insists gently but his voice is raw. He shrugs like he doesn't give a shit but his clenched fist tells different. He cares. So much. Too much.  
Tori opens her mouth desperately, racking her brains trying to think of a solution to this awful situation. Jade was so heartbroken over the breakup that Tori couldn't help but take her side. But she hadn't really noticed Beck's rigid posture or his black eyes following Jade everywhere or his inability to finish a meal. He was just better at hiding it. Cat's words rang out, filling the space of Tori's absent ones.

"Do you want her back?" she asks simply. It was such a simple question it was laughable but it had the most complicated answer for Beck. Number one, she was with someone else now. It wasn't as simple as just wanting her back. And second, if he said yes then he'd admit that he wasn't coping and that was not how the Beck train rolled. But he did, he desperately did. He'd sell his soul to be able to wake up in the morning to the sight of her tangled black hair sprayed across the pillow. So he nods silently, not making eye contact with his friends. Cat nods too.

"Okay." She says. "Then get her back."

Simple.


	16. Guilt

_I forgot to say, the last chapter was my original one shot! In another life that's all you would've got. I just expanded it by like 20000 words. Whatev. And I edited the end - Cat was meant to get mad and he was meant to make her cry. Far too many of my stories end like that I think. I just think they'd get in a lot of fights over Jade. *Losing a lot of faith in this story and I'm very ready to be done. But I'm trés busy atm. I'll try to finish. Soon.* K._  
_I do not own Victorious. _

* * *

She opens the door and he's standing there, wearing jeans, an AC/DC t-shirt and a leather jacket, looking the same as ever and she just thinks '_ok, we're really doing this_.' His eyes glitter and his neutral mouth, which he was trying to was off as 'cool', springs up into an involuntary smile.  
"Hi." He says, grinning. "Ready?"

He's looking at her short black dress with bat wings and her little peep toe heels emphasising her long legs and her dark eyes are looking up at him and he's thinking 'God. _Wow_. She's a beauty.' But he always thought that. Her multiple gold rings clink loudly together.  
"Sure." She agrees, _her_ face succeeding in remaining neutrally cool. Whatever. Girl just had skills. They walk outside towards the car, arms brushing.

"You look like a stupid Fall Out Boy wannabee" she comments objectively and casually, making him chuckle.  
"Gee, _thanks_ _Evanescence."_ She raises on eyebrow, stopping, looking down at herself. Ryder laughs and then speaks up still chuckling.  
"Hold on, I better go to the bathroom before we leave." She looks up, frowning, irritated.  
"Fine. Hurry up." She orders as he jogs back into the house.

She leans against his locked car, rubbing her hands together to keep warm and looks out at the lit street. A car's driving up the road, its headlights lighting up the pavement. A very familiar car. A truck. A stupid scratched red pick-up truck. It's driving pretty fast and comes to a halt a few feet from Jade and Beck jumps out. Oh holy shit.

"Beck?" And he's striding towards her furiously, his face hard and crazed, and without warning he grabs her head and slams his lips to hers, desperate and hot blooded and Beck. And it's _Beck_, and she knows how many freckles are on his left arm and the time it takes for him to have a shower in the morning and she tangles her fingers in her hair and responds passionately to him.

And he just loves her so much, and what the fuck was he thinking, that he's be 'better off' without her. That's a load of crap because what the hell can he do without her now? His lips are moving furiously, needing her so much and grabs her thighs and lifts her up, so she wraps her legs around his waist, tugging at his hair, her breath ragged and her lips desperate. But then he lifts her over to the car to sit her down on the bonnet, his lips pushing her head back. The bonnet of _Ryder's_ car so she suddenly gasps and pushes him away.

"What the fuck are you doing?" she snarls. And he's like, 'no Jade, don't. Don't. I love you. Till the fucking end of time.' He runs a hand through his unkempt hair, his chocolate eyes so wide and sorry.  
"Jade. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, I'm a dick. I didn't open the door, okay I'm a dick. I can't fucking…fuck. I can't do this without you. I thought I could but –"

"No!" she cuts him off angrily and jumps down from the car like a panther, making him step back in dread. "I'm with _Ryder_. What, you think you it's cool that we're broken up, but the minute I'm with someone else, you suddenly can't _stand_ it? Bullshit, Beck!" she snarls.  
"So…you're with him? Officially?"  
"I've known him since I was eight Beck. It's not that big a shock."

"It's a shock to me." He tells her quietly, his eyes furious, because she _knows_, she fucking knows their unspoken rule. Their break-ups aren't break-ups. She fucking knows, he thinks. His face is intense and it's so freaking weird, him being this scared and open because that's not who her Beck _is_. But he's different now, he's changed – he looks… lost. And she _does_ know. It was always in the back of her head that they could never be _over_. She didn't know why she moved on. Ryder loved her so much and he made her smile every time she saw his stupid grin.

"Don't do this." He persists desperately. "You know us. We're_ it_, we're _forever_. And you fucking _know _it. Why are you doing this to me? Are you trying to kill me?" Her eyes narrow and she shoves him in the chest and snarls back at him. His pained accusiations make her feel so guilty as she comprehends how hard she must have hit him with this whole Ryder thing, but right now that made her so _angry_ at him, she couldn't understand it. Why did he need to wait this long to say it? Why did he wait for so long that Ryder was the one to have to be there for her?

"So what you did to me at Tori's what the fuck was that?"  
"Jade. You left _me_. I just didn't follow. For God's sakes Jade, why'd you have to _be_ with him? He says accusingly, his face overflowing with a burning betrayal. His eyes seem to accuse her so harshly and she takes a step back in guilt at how much she hurt him with Ryder. she realises it was a two way street. He didn't open the door. She moved on with Ryder. Fire with fire.

"I fucking _need_ you Jade." And she breathes. Needs her. Her _needs_ her.  
She could tell it was true at the yearn in his voice and the almost constant brushing through his hair and the deadly blackness of his eyes. She takes a step forward and takes his hand, staring into the eyes she knew like the back of her hand.  
"Beck –"

"Jade?" A voice. An angry voice. A disbelieving voice. An oh-so familiar voice. "Jade, what's he doing here?"  
She shoves Beck away and turns to Ryder who's coming towards them like a train .  
"He just showed up Ryder. He wants to know if I'm going to Tori's tomorrow." She defends, making Beck blink at his protector.

"Why the fuck was he touching you?" He glares at Beck and takes a menacing step towards him making Jade reach for his arm hard, because when he offered to hit Beck, he meant it.  
"Ryder, no, don't be stupid, I was just upset because he was asking me about Danny. Ryder stop!" And he freezes in reaction to her pleas, his face an inch from Beck's glaring fiercely while Beck stared him out, coolly, the only method Beck knew.

"Ryder!" And she tugs on his arms again.  
"You screwed her around." Ryder snarls fiercely. Beck half smiles though Jade notices it doesn't reach his eyes and he looks at Ryder patronizingly.  
"Dude. Chill." Like he was talking to a hysterical Jade. But Ryder was in super angry mode and it was not a good idea. Beck looks like her knows that, but just wants a reason – wants just _one_ reason and it scares Jade. He's so goddamn furious.

"Ryder." Jade's voice sounds in a different tone altogether, like an order and Ryder immediately freezes and then looks back at Jade. Her eyes were like fire and he doesn't know if she's going to kiss him or tear at his face with her nails. Probably the latter. He steps back and looks back to Beck, taking her hand while Jade looks down not meeting Beck's eyes. She knows how much this is hurting him. Ryder gives Beck one last look filled with unspoken accusations and threats and then suddenly whips around towards his car, Jade in tow.

Beck stands as a statue in her driveway and Jade can feel it because her head whips round to lock her glassy eyes on him. He stares back, not saying a word as she was led away but she could see pain burning in his chocolate eyes. They had reached the car and Jade pulled Ryder up short by the hand making him stop.  
"Get in the car Ryder. I'll be right back."

He frowns a little, his eyes like bambi's and she nods her head to the lone statue in the middle of her empty drive. "I'll make him leave." She promises and he looks at her and nods and got in the car, trust radiating out of him. It makes her sigh. What benefit would he possibly gain by trusting her? The car lights up and he drives down a few feet, stopping at the end of her drive, waiting for her, the car idling.

She turns around and slowly makes her way over to Beck, watching him, her heels clicking softly on the tarmac. He doesn't move a muscle just watches her with dark eyes as she makes her way over to him. She stops about a foot in front of him and he can see her lipstick is a little smudged from their kisses and wonders if Ryder noticed, or it was too dark, or he just didn't want to see it.

"You better go home Beck" she mutters, her voice sounding intense and husky in the darkness and he remembers how much he loves when she sings to him on their late night drives home. He doesn't beg her to take him back or get angry about Ryder or tell her how much he loves her again. She heard him the first time and she can do what she wants with that information. He just nods at her and she walks him to his car. She opens the door for him slowly, looking at her feet and he jumps in to the driver's seat. But she doesn't close the door.

Instead she stands there, her long black hair waving gently down her back and she looks at her shoes. She doesn't speak for the longest time and Beck wonders what she's thinking.  
"You could come with me y'know." He offers softly, breaking the silence. The passenger seat seems unreasonably empty to her and she has the biggest urge to fill it.  
Her face looks up to Beck's and he doesn't look hopeful or desperate or irritated. He's just offering. He said everything he had to say. It was her choice now. He was the one who showed up the day her father left, and the one who left the first play he ever got a starring role in, five minutes before it started because she had ended up in the emergency room, and he was the one who held her hand constantly to stop her nails digging into her skin - that little nasty habit she had. It was her choice to go with him. They stare at each other and she's looking at his lips remembering their kiss and her urgency and plain need for him. She bites her lips, and then quick as a snake, she reaches over and grabs Beck's hand resting on his thigh. The car door blocks their hands from Ryder and she laces her fingers with hers and holds tight. Her left foot takes an involuntary step forward and she parts her lips, eyes locked on his.

But she jumps when she hears Ryder's horn sound and snatches her hand back, stepping backwards hastily. Her eyes are still locked on Beck's as she slams his door and walks decisively back to Ryder. She walks down the 'driveway of guilt', that she had apparently named within the last five seconds, the name that she would keep right up to her college years because that's all she's blindly feeling right now. Her heels click loudly and swiftly, feeling Beck's eyes lock on her and never ever _ever_ looking around, because if she could just _see_ the look on his face. Well now. It wasn't a pretty sight.


	17. Picnic

_I'm slow. I know. And I don't own Victorious. _

* * *

"Jade? Want some?" He's answered with a silence and a gaze that's a thousand miles away.  
"_Jade_!" She jumps and her eyes move to his like a magnet. She blinks bemusedly.  
"What?" she snaps. He gestures to the fancy glass of chocolate mousse he holds and repeats, more gently this time.  
"Want some?"

She looks at it. It isn't so much of a chocolate mousse than chocolate sauce. But she really couldn't complain as he had made it himself. In fact, he had made their whole picnic basket himself apparently, his mom only allowed to observe from the counter top so he could claim as such. He had even put a fucking sliced strawberry on the side for Christ's sakes. She couldn't complain. But then again, it _was_ Jade.

"Uh, _no_, that looks like something you find at the side of the highway." She wrinkles her nose as he set it down.  
"Gross Jade!" he whines, shoving her gently and pouting. She shoves back.  
"Just saying how it is dude."

He frowns but she doesn't see. _Dude?_ He thinks. He decisively lifts his hand from beside his leg and grabs Jades. She looks at it, surprised, staring a little longer than Ryder would have liked, his stomach twisting in uncomfortable knots, but then she looks up and smiles at him and his mouth lifts automatically in response. He squeezes back gently.

"So what do you want to eat then?" he turns away to search through the basket with his free hand, holding firmly to her other, his triumphant smile still present. "Uh… we've got coffee and fruit salad and… stuffed chicken… and cashew nuts.." He lifts them out, offering her the bag. "Here."  
"No thanks" she says holding up her flat palm in rejection.  
"You love cashews!" he insists, smiling, moving the bag closer to her. She shakes her head, looking at him.  
"I don't eat them anymore. I found out I'm allergic." She faintly smiles apologetically. He drops his hand.  
"Since when?" She shrugs.  
"Like.. six months ago?" He nods once.  
"Oh." She looks away, staring at the ocean.

They were sitting at the side of the boardwalk at the beach, their legs dangling side by side over the edge, just a few feet above the glittering water. It was late, - dusk - but that's when Jade loved the beach the best. No children, canines, noise or people in general she said. Which probably made it Ryder's least favourite time of the day – he liked the noise and the laughter of free-spirited teenagers or squeals of children playing in the waves and dogs barking at scuttling crabs and gentle fathers insisting that their wives protect themselves from the sun with sun tan lotion. But he knew it's what Jade enjoyed and he'd bend down on his knees to see her smile, even just for a moment.

"Cat tells me you wrote a play." He states randomly. She raises her eyebrows.  
"Since when are you and Cat such good friends?" He shrugs, smiling.  
"Since me and you started dating." His grin gets wider. "Me and Cat talk a lot now." Is it possible that his grin could widen? "About you. She's so cute – you never said." Jade's eyes get dangerous as she stares at him threateningly.  
"She's not cute. She's basically a pet."  
"A _cute_ pet that only has nice things to say about you." She glares.

"You talk to _my_ friends?" She forces him to confirm. "About _me_?" Her glare just makes him chuckle. She considers how he'd take it if she shoved him off the boardwalk. Probably well. He'd more than likely laugh. Which is why she won't do it.  
"Sure. I didn't know what to do for our first date – I thought your _best_ friend would know you_ best_." She shrugs.  
"That's stupid. You've known me before Cat did. You're my best guy friend anyway." She blinks wishing she hadn't said that. Too much information Jade. "Anyway, Cat's not my best friend."

Ryder ignores this – he's used to her little lies by now. In fact he doesn't even count them as lies anymore, he just sees them as something she's forced to say, and he can't blame her for protecting her vulnerabilities. That was who Jade always was and he wasn't about to complain. Besides, it sort of came as a packages deal, Jade's need to say a random hurtful comments that don't mean anything. Take her or leave her. And Ryder very much wanted to take her. For example – "No one likes you. Were you made that ugly? So how many times a day did your mother drop you on your head? I hate you. I don't need your help. Fuck off bitch. I'm fine, don't worry about me." She didn't mean any of this.

"I'm your best guy friend?" He bites his lip and peeks up from his lashes, like a blushing little southern girl. "Shucks, Jade. You so sweet ta may." She shoves him again and he falls to the side, laughing at her irritated expression, but her turned-up mouth.  
"Whatever." But his laugh was so infectious. His eyes crinkle for God's sakes. He sits upright taking her hand again.

"Yeah so Cat also told me you've sat here, like every day for a year. She said sometimes you take her along and let her feed the seagulls. And that her brother once caught a seagull and tried to take it home but it wasn't where he left it when it was time to go." He raises his eyebrows, about to laugh again as if asking for an explanation. Jade rolls her eyes.  
"Of _course_ she told you that." She shakes her head and he cocks his, his smile small now.

"She said you can spend hours sitting here." His voice is less gaudy and energetic. "She says you go home at four a.m. sometimes." She looks at him, considering his words, his tone.  
"Sure. Okay. ….What's the problem?" He frowns, his smile seeming carved on his face.  
"You sit here, alone, in the dark, for hours." She nods at his statement. "And… what do you do?" She shrugs looking at the sky.  
"Think." There's a moment of silence before he laughs again.

"You're so deep Jade." He laughs and if Jade West would ever blush, she would.  
"Fuck off." She mutters. "Seriously, did your mother drop you on your head daily?" He doesn't even _hear_ her insults. "What's wrong with thinking?"  
"Nothing, I guess." He admits. "It's not very productive though is it?" She shrugs.  
"It's where I came up with the idea for my script."  
"Oh really? I must read it sometime. Cat told me it was so sad." Jade frowns. "But she loved it" he reassures and she scoffs.

"Oh sure, like you can read."  
"I read." He insists. Another eye roll but a cute smirk accompanies it so it's really okay.  
"Oh yes? Name ten." A little crease furrows between his eyebrows. A pause.  
"….I'm deciding _not_ to out of free will." He finally states. She rolls her eyes again but this time it's not just accompanied with a smile – an endearing grin lights up her face and she laughs at him.  
"You dork."

"Cat said your play got the attention of some agent in the city?" She shrugs like it's no big deal.  
"He seemed keen." He raises his eyebrows, impressed.  
"You're making an impact on people." He catches her eyes for a moment and they flash. "And to think, you wrote this play from the inspiration of my dazzling self. I'm flattered Jayjay." Her flash of pride morphs into incredulousness.

"I see. And how _exactly_ did _you_ become my inspiration?" His eyes look dumb.  
"Well... I just _assumed_, I guess, due to the fact that I'm pretty much the inspiration for _everything_ you do." She nods, playing along.  
"Right right, I see where you'd think that. But I think you confused the word inspire, with _nauseate_."  
"I nauseate you from my overdose of charm."  
"The charm of being a dork."  
"The kind of dork that has that subtle sexy appeal?"  
"The kind of dork that shoves a diamond in his ear because he thinks it makes him look cool and then goes home and watches Gok's Fashion Road Show for three hours."  
"That man has _taste_, okay, and he built up all those lonely social workers' confidence."  
"Yeah, _that_ kind of dork." He cocks his head.  
"And _no_ subtle sexy appeal?" Her smile widens and this smile tops every single cat-fail video on YouTube, every teenage boy that helps old ladies with her shopping, every little girl who tells strangers they look pretty. Her teeth show and her nose crinkles and her eyes crease and Ryder can't help think that she's the cutest thing ever.  
"Maybe a little." she offers and pecks him on the cheek, making his smile match hers.

"Cat _told_ me you give good cheek kisses." he says cheekily, cocky as ever. Jade's tone had gone back to incredulous but she smiles underneath, Ryder can tell.  
"Oh _did_ she? Ryder, I think you'd be better off getting your own friends, than taking my naive ones that sometimes need help tying their shoes." He chuckles, the sound like a toddler.  
"Come on, she's so cute! ...And... there's nothing wr-?"  
"There's nothing wrong with her" Jade cuts in. He nods, still smiling, but it seems a little artificial. Jade speaks up.

"Ryder, really what are you doing phoning Cat?" His mouth opens but nothing comes out and he's smiling like he's embarrassed.  
"I wanted to know where I should take you." he smiles more but it's so fake and Ryder could never mask his emotions for longer than a minute. She raises one eyebrow, silently telling him to 'knock off the shit and _tell_ me.'  
"Dude. You took me out more than Cat ever did. We went to see... fucking Shakespeare, and we went swimming and saw Red Hot Chilli Pepper concerts. You know better than her."  
He nods passively, like he's not really there and he looks at the water, that he can hardly see now. The street lamps suddenly flicker on Jade's hand seems to glow unearthly in his. He grabs it more firmly.  
"Yeah." There's a silence but she waits for him for finish. He does.

"I guess...I basically just rang Cat to ask her… if you were still in love with Beck." Her head whips around and stares at him expressionlessly. And angrily. Okay maybe not expressionlessly.

"And what would give you the urge to do that?" Maybe he did see the smudged lipstick. Though that didn't make sense, he rang Cat before that happened. Did Beck say something to him? Or Cat? Or.. oh God it was fucking Tori wasn't it? He speaks up, his voice hoarse.  
"Nothing. It's just. You stopped talking to me for a year Jade. One year. And I'm supposedly your best-guy-friend?" His eyes are the size of fucking tennis balls and she can't let go of their intensity. "I was a bastard to your friend, I know, but I just got the feeling that you forgot all about me. And Beck just became your life."

Jade nods slowly, her eyes sad and she holds his hand tighter. She knew how to handle Beck when he got upset, but Ryder hardly every stopped smiling – it was a little disorientating.  
"I've known you since I was eight." He continues tentatively, like he was in two minds as whether to continue. But he had to know, how she could have forgetten them. "And I've pretty much seen you almost every day, definitely every week for those seven years. It took you five minutes to decide not to talk to me and another five to forget me. I never thought ..." he shrugs, "...you'd throw us away like that." He finishes and when she doesn't wrap her arms around him and assure she thought about him every day for that year, like he did, he looks down at their feet, dangling casually side by side, so close to touching. She tugs at his hand sharply and makes him look at her.

"Ryder." Her eyes are black. "_I've_ known you since I was eight." She repeats, stressing her words. "And _I've_ pretty much seen you almost every day, definitely every week for those seven years. Don't you even think I forgot about you not being there Ryder. I fucking _knew_ that you were not there."

She had felt it hard. No singing made up songs. No guitar playing from the living room couch. No shouts of anger from her brothers room playing X-box. No trips out to the theatre. No beach days, no lazy movie days, no hysterical sleepovers. No Ryder. She felt it.

His eyes fill with gratitude and relief at her words though she thought it was stupid. He looked too much like a puppy dog right now she had to explain herself, desperately and frantically and somewhat incomprehensibly like Jade does.  
"Tori and Me. I don't like her. She's perfect in absolutely every way and everything's so effortless to her. And she's sort of a whiner but see, she'd do anything for me. You know yourself Ryder, she's genuinely a good person and she tries so fucking hard to please me, I don't even know why. I _had_ to defend her." He nods dutifully.  
"Yes. Jade, it's fine. It's just. I missed you that year. A lot. Ask my mom, she'll tell you. I wasn't right." Her eyes drift out to the water, that she could barely see now, but the edges of the waves shining in silver moonlight dancing at her feet.

"Sorry." Her voice is rough, like it is when she spends all week singing. "I wasn't right either. Ask my brother. …But we're good now right?" His eyes haven't left hers.  
"I think we're better than that." He pulls at her hand making her turn towards him and then catches her face with the other, his lips joining hers. She kisses back and he leans forward pushing her down until her back hits the dock and he lies beside her, his head above her, never breaking the kiss. (Okay he had kissed _a lot_ of girls in his life.) Her free hand rose up to gently twine her fingers in his thick black hair and without his consent, his mouth adorably pulls up into a smile against hers and hers pulls up in response. There's no one here, at ten o'clock on the beach and the only company they have is the waves that lap against the dock quietly. Jade's hand is still in his. He pulls away and looks down at her, her mouth still pulled upwards, her pale face almost glowing in the darkness, her black hair spilling over the wood of the boardwalk and in the dim light he isn't able to tell where the dock starts and her locks end. Everything is Jade.


	18. Purpose

Kay I know, I'm sorry, I'm a bad person. Please don't cry.  
Don't own Victorious.

* * *

They go back to his and his mom makes her black coffee. Even though it's like midnight. His mom's cool. She knew Jade since forever and apparently, she had seen this coming. She treated her just the same as ever though, asking about school, praising about plays, coaxing her to sing for her. If there was one person Jade was sure she liked it was Ryder's mom. She was a laugh.

They spent the night singing to Ryder's guitar and eating tea and lemon drizzle squares his mom had made and laughing hysterically at Ryder's mom's own interpretative lyrics until they didn't even make a sound, just a constant shaking and desperate ragged breaths.

His ride squeaked to a halt outside her house. He had held her hand the whole way and the smile plastered to his face never wavered. He kissed her softly and then cupped her cheek to pull her closer and deepened the kiss. She could tell that he wanted to be serious and romantic but she could feel his mouth sweetly pull up into a grin and he pulled away in the hopes that she wouldn't notice that last part. She grinned back and then pulled his face back to kiss him again. That smile just wasn't going away was it? She smiled inwardly at his childlike happiness. Who was she to make someone smile like this? All she did was laugh at his mom and insult his cooking. She was hardly that wonderful, although his admiring eyes said different. Foolish boy, she thought. She got out the car and opened her front door, standing there until he drove off, the smile seeming to glow in the darkness of his car or maybe that's all she could see. It troubled her a little though she didn't know fully why. She didn't really feel like it had place to be there. She was just Jade. Or perhaps it was because her open mouth wasn't mirroring his.

She stands outside now for a little while until the stupid gang of twenty something year olds drive past at a stupid speed in their racer, beeping their horn and she slams the door shut, cutting off the sharp air that makes her feel defined and alive. The house seems stuffy and close to her now, even though she knows it's cold as always. She shivers and grabs the forest green tweed cardigan hanging on the stairs and pulls it on, making her look strange as it contrasts with the short black dress and heels underneath, like a model at the end of the day.

She sits on the kitchen counter and puts her head in her hands. The house is dark and quiet. The clock doesn't even tick. The outlines of the table and the kettle and the toaster are visible but the darkness is the focal point here. There's no sound of anyone in the house. She thought her mom was supposed stay since she got back on Monday. Though there was never any point counting on an 'supposition' over her mom. She had a tendency, or according to her mom, a 'need' to get away from it all, to escape. Except that need to escape became constant and Jade stopped getting hopeful as the bus dropped her home each day. Danny liked to stay at her Dad's a lot. Especially now when he had just gotten out of hospital and he got spoilt 24/7 – ice-cream, movies, cookies – whatever he wanted. And Jade was left with silence.

_God!_ Her hand springs out and strikes the fruit bowl so it clatters onto the floor and shatters with a piercing crash. The apples bounce progressively on the floor, creating bruises, and spoiling them. Why did Beck have to show up tonight? Ryder had been so sweet to her all night and she couldn't even concentrate on it. All she saw when she looked out onto the waves was the boy with the hair.  
_Why are you doing this to me? Are you trying to kill me? _

Oh God. Her hands clench hard and she shoves them into her eyelid so the darkness would dissolve into distracting white patterns. Except suddenly they take the form of Beck's eyes staring at her, like she was taking away his life, like she _was_ killing him. She suddenly gasps and springs upwards, jumping off the stool onto the floor, her heels crunching over broken china. She pulls off her rings and throws them down to join to apples and whirls round to escape out the back door, halting at the steps. The cool air swallows her up and calms her mind. The wind makes her hair dance and little and she's grateful.

Whenever she was upset about something, or furious, screaming and throwing things, back when Beck used to have more patience, he would wordlessly take her hand and lead her outside.  
_"See?"_ He would murmur calmly, like he could see his girlfriend's streaming tears or furious raging eyes. _"It's alright. It's okay out here, isn't it? Your problems aren't out here. They don't know _anything_ out here. All that's here is the air and the wind. They don't _know_ Jade. And you don't need to tell them either."_

She had told him at the time that he wasn't William Wordsworth and her father was still leaving _isn't he Beck? Huh? Isn't he?_, but he was right. The wind didn't know her problems. All it did was blow them away. She learned to hate houses.

She wraps her cardigan closer to her and shivers though decidedly kicks off her heels and steps barefoot onto the icy paving. Her breath drags out ragged smoke from her. She watches it for a while, smoke and fade, smoke and fade. It's so pretty she thinks, white wisps curling around each other, like dancers. So pretty, only to disappear. A heavy breath that is not hers sounds suddenly, startling her and she whips around to face the back door. Her mom wasn't stading there. Oh Christ. Because it's Jade her mind jumps the the worst possible conclusion that could ever be considered to happen but Jade West does not get startled _thank you_ and she turns back to face the pitch black lawn, eyes wide.

"Hello?" She calls, her voice sounding nice and arrogant she thinks. Not a shake or a stutter to be heard. And then:  
"Jade." It's from the high wooden fence and she suddenly sees a figure hunched down against it, unnoticed and her feet backs up and freezes.  
"Jade, it's okay. It's just me."  
She steps twice forward and hunches down slowly toward the voice.  
"Beck?"

He's crouching in between Danny's go-kart and her mom's plant pots, unmoving, his eyes trained on her. He looks so alone.  
"What are you doing here?" she whipers. He looks too vurnerable to shout at. She hears him shrug and it takes him a little while to answer.  
"I don't know." He manages. He sounds confused.  
"I told you to go home." She reminds him. She slides out of her couch and sits downs opposite him, her legs collapsing in front of her, the icing ground drawing the warmth from her legs.  
"Yeah." He agrees. In that same quiet confused tone. "I couldn't do it."  
She frowns but he can't see.  
"What?"  
"I just couldn't. What's the point?" She exhales, the smoke clouding in front of her, disappearing an instant later. She stares at his dark figure, the outline of his hair just visible, messy and haggard.

"There is no point." He answers himself. "I'll go home and put on the shirt that you used to wear to bed and pick up the toothbrush that sits beside your black and gold one and go to sleep in my bed without you and wake up and you won't be there. Continue and repeat. And repeat and repeat and repeat and _repeat_." His tone is hard now. "What _is_ the point now, Jade, Bernadette, West, if you'll be so kind?" He says her name so slow and bitterly it's hard to respond.

"I..I don't know Beck." She's caught off guard. Never has he ever been this… _raw_ with her. She always used to just sense if he was stressed about school, or worried about his mom, or having another 'Becklifecrisis'. And he would tell her _sure_, if he was _not_ okay, though she always assumed it wasn't because he particularly _wanted_ to, more that he believed in the power of communication. But never so open as this.

"But I'm sure," She continues. "that I am _not_ the missing point Beck. I was _never_ the 'point' of your life was I? Now should not make a difference." His arm suddenly shoots up, unexpectantly in the darkness and it grabs her wrist tight. She gasps but he's not letting go and she feels his sit up and lean forward a little because his voice is a little louder.  
"You were _always_ the point Jade."

She bites her lip and she can't see him well but she can sense his eyes boring into hers. His hand is still clutching her wrist. She nods and she thinks he senses it because his grasp softens and his fingers slide up to twine with hers. Her hand clenches over his a little, at the familiar contact but she her mind can't help but drift to the boy with the blue eyes, saturated in trust that really had no place there. She sighs anxiously.

"Beck... You - ...Ryder's a good boy. He really is and I can't -"  
"Stop." he commands hoarsely. "I get it Jade kay? You made it clear, _I get it_! Just.. just sit here with me. That's all." He pulls persuasively at her hand and she sighs a little but goes to sit beside him, pushing the go kart out the way. He puts his arm around her, pulling her close, his other hand holding her cold knee and she reflexively and passively leans her head to rest on his shoulder, the place that's her own. He sighs contentedly, but she can hear the bitterness behind it. Like this is the last time. This is it. It's gone. They're done. It's over, goodbye.

"You were always the point." She can barely hear it. He might not even have said it but she swears she heard him repeat it, under his breath, like an oath.

"You were too." she breathes, just as quietly as him, just in case he _did_ say it. His breath suddenly sucks in sharp.

"Jade-" ...


	19. Black

_Not sure. planned this a while ago. Not sure about it now... Seems really broadway. lol! Anyway. _  
_I don't own victorious._

* * *

Jade. The name on his lips the moment he opens his eyes. Her smile, the first thing he sees in his mind. Jade. Jade, Jade, Jade, Jade, Jade. He had always felt protective over Jade, even when they were kids. _Jade, don't swing too high, you'll fall, Jade, don't go out with that boy he's bad news, Jade don't walk home alone, it's dangerous._ But he had only just realised that his protectiveness was not just protectiveness when she started getting into serious relationships.  
_Jade don't see that boy he's -._  
_He's what Ryder?_  
_…Nothing._  
His eyes were trained on her since then, not that she'd noticed. Not that she'd looked up once from Beck's.

He rolls over and sits up, swinging his legs out of bed, musing his bed-tainted hair. The night before is pretty much a vibrant blur, save for the random moments that for some reason stick with him in detail - He had held Jade from behind and his nose would brush her neck. He remembers the smell of her neck – some weird blend of sweet scents like candy and coconuts. He remembers clutching her ice cold hands to give them warmth. Her lips against his on the boardwalk. Her lashes looking up at him in the car; her crippling laughter, eyelashes downcast, holding hot chocolate; her foot running along his leg under the table. Everything seems vague and unrealistic now except those precious details. Moments of clarity. Moments not to be forgotten.

Jade. He staggers up and grins, as more of those moments come back to him, passing the photo blue tacked to his wall, of him in shorts at the beach, standing at the end of the boardwalk laughing, about to throw a bikini clad Jade, kicking and screaming into the water. He throws on jeans and a shirt and plods softly downstairs barefoot. His mom's out working, since seven a.m and he's pretty sure his dad is lying around somewhere. Just his luck. Hopefully he'd get another lecture about how he'll fail at life or a threat to break his new guitar.

Downstairs, he sits up at the counter of the island in the kitchen spreading butter on toast and the bells rings. The door opens and it's Jade. Long black curls, smooth perfect skin, full pink lips and those _eyes_. His. He grins at her before taking in her expression.

"Jade? Hey girl, you okay?" He doesn't wait for an answer, just leans in and pecks her on the cheek, grinning like a child on his birthday. His eyes glow.  
"Want to come in? We got waffles." His smile falters a little when he does take in Jade's expression. It's blank, wide-eyed, reserved. Scared? He doesn't really know, maybe it's none of those things, but he knows that it's weird, it's different and something isn't right.

"Hey. You okay?" he asks again, meaning it this time He takes her hand and drags her inside, leaning against the armrest of the sofa, still holding her hand. "…Jade?" She stands helplessly in front of him, her mouth opens and shuts like a goldfish, her eyes not leaving his. Definitely scared. "What's wrong?" he demands, and grabs her hands. "Jade?" he pulls them up to his mouth and kisses them hard. She gently pries them away and places them in front of her, clasped together so tight that her hands turn white.

"I think." She seems unable to handle her locked eye contact any longer and her eyes bolt to his shoulder instead. She breathes deeply. "I think… that maybe, we should call off this dating thing." She speaks slowly and surely like it's not really her that's saying it. "We're friends. Best friends, and I don't think we're cut out for… this."  
Her eyes won't look at his. Judging by his shoulder he hasn't moved an inch. She's not focusing on his expression much but she thinks it's frozen. He's not breathing. She covers it by rambling.

"Don't think – it's nothing _you_ did Ryder. No. It's just… I don't really see us working and -. We… we just started getting back to normal and you know… we're_ friends_ again, _good_ friends. I'm not sure that -. Like, I ..._love_ you Ryder. More than you would think perhaps. But just maybe -." She shuts up because he hasn't cut her off like he normally does, like anyone would normally have done and she isn't used to being let ramble.  
"Ryder?"

Silence. She guesses that she has to look at his face to get a response. But she doesn't want to. She _really_ doesn't want to. She looks down to his chest as if her guilt had physically dragged her head down.  
"I'm sorry." She whispers. She hopes he hears. She isn't good at this. Silence. She decides to give him a minute and if he hasn't said anything by then, she'd leave. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Sev- God! She can't handle this tension. Her head snaps up and she looks at his face. And wishes she hadn't.

His eyes are stunned. Appalled. But worse, hurt, like he couldn't understand why she's doing this to him. He doesn't even try to hide it. His face is frozen, starting at her and she can almost hear him ask through his eyes, why are you doing this to me? You'd think she made him watch his own mother burn. His breathing is heaving and slow now and his expression gives her the oddest feeling of deja vu; it reminds her so poignantly of when he pulled her out of the water the day she left Beck, so heartbroken that he thought she'd killed herself. She can't take it; the guilt at watching his face break is tightening her throat and making her nails dig into her palms. "Ryder I'm so s-"

"You kissed me." He cuts her off. "You laughed yesterday. Today, I'm not good enough for you?" His voice is confused like he doesn't understand that she would hurt him. Just wait, Ryder. You'll know why all that trust was never justified to be in your eyes. Just wait Ryder.  
"No, Ryder, you're_ too_ good. I laughed yesterday, because I was _happy_ yesterday, okay? We just.."  
"Just what? We're just _happy_ together?"  
"Yeah, but we –"  
"We?" he prompts, shock and devastation evident in his scratching tone.  
She shakes her head soundlessly, mouth agape, seeming to be at a loss for words. Her eyes beg for mercy.

Suddenly his frantic suffering face blanks and he closes off, looking instantly and disconcertedly distant and cold.  
"_Ah_." He states, his dead tone sending chills through her hand. "You're back together with Beck." It's confirmed with the pity and the guilt that creeps into her eyes and she bites her lip softly.  
"Sorry" she mouths, unable to voice it. So sorry. His composed expression unsettles her. Never, ever before had he been this detached. That was Beck's job, not the boy with the trust in his eyes. Maybe she would be the reason to take it all away.  
"I see." He looks at her. She flinches. So distant.

"It's not like we were going on long Ryder. Or that we were serious about this. We just did it."  
"I see." He repeats. "Well perhaps it meant a little more to me than it did to y-"  
"Ryder don't, it meant so much to me. But we're friends first anyway, so us as a couple can't be that much of a loss right?" She asks, grasping at straws. His cold stare tells her different. His voice seems stolen too.  
"Ryder." Her expression is painted in distress and both her hands reach up to cup his face. "Ryder, I'm sorry. I just love him. That's the only problem but it's one that will _never_ go away. We just can't cope without each other Ryder, but you and me are always –" His cold lifeless eyes staring into hers cut her off short.  
"I think you should leave Jade" he mouths this but she understands. She nods dejectedly, not making eyes contact with him but grabs his hand and kisses it quick before running out the door.

He knows what the kiss meant. Goodbye, I'm sorry, I still love you, but it really doesn't make a difference, Jade thinks, when she hears him stifle a sob from the other side of the door.

.

His father finds him sitting on the end of the sofa, his knees tucked up to his chest, staring blackly at the wall. His eyes follow his gaze.  
"Something in the wallpaper boy?" he drones his voice dangerous though Ryder is past noticing. He doesn't acknowledge him. He stares. He's still.  
"Boy!" his father steps in front of him. He's holding something in front of his face but Ryder can only make out it's white.  
"Are you hearing me boy? Do you know what this is?" He flaps the item in front of his face aggressively and it crinkles – it's paper. Still, he doesn't answer. _With Beck. She's with Beck_.  
"It's from your school of singing and sunshine." He answers himself, mockingly. Hollywood Arts, the school of 'sunshine all day every day'. "It doesn't just cost sunshine to attend there boy. And we're overdue already. You think _I'm_ going to pay this? You think I can afford to keep sending you to this…this… this _sunshine_ school? Huh!"  
Silence.  
"Are you listening to me boy?" he voice rises to a shout. "No. More. You know how much it costs me a term? _D'you know?_ Five grand. Huh? Five grand a term. Are _you_ paying for this? No. Well I'll tell you this boy, neither am I. Not anymore. _You got it?"_  
Silence. '_I just love him.'_

"_Boy!_ You hearing me? _No more_. I don't give a fuck what your mother says, she's as bad as you with her nails and her pottery classes and her fucking ski lessons. _No more_. You fucking _got_ it boy?" his voice is more of a roar now but Ryder doesn't even flinch, like he can't hear him. Perhaps he can't. His dad stops, infuriated by the lack of response. His voice became cold and quiet.

"You ungrateful little _shit_." He purrs. "Five grand a term and not a word of gratitude. You're not even listening to me are you; you're too _goddamn_ wrapped up in your own little world just because your girl don't want you." Ryder doesn't move but his eyes flash and fix themselves upward just a little, like a dog whose ears pin back when you've got their attention. His dad smirks at Ryder's response.

"Ah. You thought I didn't know did you, didn't know something that happens in my own house? I'll tell you this, you've got some things to learn. That girl's no good. You can see it in her face – green hair and pierced face like she's got something to prove. Attention seeking attitude to match. Maybe you're too ignorant to notice but that girl's nothing but wannabee trash, just like anyone who goes to that fucking sunshine school for the emotionally ne–"  
"_SHUT UP!"_

He's on his feet, glaring furiously into his dad's eyes, the exact same height as him. His eyes burn with fire and his breath comes up in shaky heaving gasps. His dad's mouth turns up into a smirk at having finally got a reaction from his son but his eyes darken in rage. Their faces are only a few inches apart, sizing each other up, hating each other's guts.

"Just because _mom_ hates your guts doesn't justify your hatred of Jade. Jade is _not_ trash you absoloute _dick_!" He spits at him. His dad nods slowly, dangerously.  
"Is that what you think boy? I heard that girl. She doesn't want you does she? She wants some other boy. _That's_ not trashy, no?"  
"She is _not_ tr-"  
"Then is it _you_ then boy? Are you trash? Are you so fucking useless that not even your all singing all dancing all fucking made of sunshine woman doesn't want you? I seen that girl round here a few times. Not once has she wanted you. Not once has she looked your way. She just loved using you just to s-"  
"SHUT. _UP_. YOU. ABSOLOUTE. _DICK_!" he roars into his face.

His dad's dangerous smirk drops, melting his face into plain furious white cold rage.  
"She's already forgotten you." He whispers maliciously, spite clogging up his veins, gesturing toward the door. "You will show me some respect, in my house, if it is the last thing you ever do." He breathes so soft that Ryder almost doesn't catch it.  
"Is that fucking right? Then maybe next time you –" Ryder roars back, oblivious in his rage to the danger in his voice but he's cut off by a sickening smack. He's on the floor and he coughs. There's blood, blood from his mouth. He frowns and coughs again, a small whimper escaping from him before another smack sounds. Then a hard thump and then… well then everything goes black.


	20. Forgotten

_K. Done. I'm probably gonna get kicked now... lol! But I just do not posses the capability of writing a happily ever after story. Never have and probably never will. Hope you liked parts of this anyway. Leave a review and tell me what you think, not just this chapter I mean, but the fic in general. Liked/hated? Bits you liked? Idk. I hope you did. Hit me back, just to chat truly yours your biggest fan this is stan. _  
_I don't own Victorious. Or Eminem's lyrics. (: _

* * *

"Found him in a pile of his own blood…"  
"Worse that it looks ma'am, he's okay…"  
"Can you get the nurse to send away the lab results…"  
"Brain damage is possible…"  
"New bandages please…"  
"Scan came back negative…"  
"Don't cry hun, that's a strong boy you've got there…"  
"Baby? Baby, please. P-please wake up son."

White lights. They hurt his eyes. Sharp pains fly through his stomach. He's dizzy like he knows he can't move without throwing up. A soft hand stokes his hair and he catches it, creating a gasp.

"Baby?" Two hands are holding his face now. "Hey, there."  
"J-" his head is woozy. "Ja-"  
He opens his eyes slowly and his mom grins back at him, her cute freckly face strangely upsetting him.  
"Hey you! Oh Christ Ryder, that's it sweetie, take it easy now." His sits up slowly, his mom's small hands helping him gently, his eyes taking in the room. Just him and his mom. White plain room. White plain sheets. White plain bandages. Bleach.

"How you feeling hun?" Her eyes are intense and locked on his; looking for signs of… he doesn't know… drowsiness? Tears? A sudden urge to pop and lock?  
"Yeah I'm…" he coughs, clearing his throat. No blood this time. "I'm okay. I'm okay." He doesn't know if he's reassuring his mom or himself. "I'm okay." He looks at his mom for real now, taking in her messy hair and haggard eyes.  
"Mom, what…. What just… what was that?" Her blue eyes turn sad and hurt.  
"I'm so-rry baby." Her voice breaks. "I don't know. I thought he would _never_…" She whispers now. "Christ, I love you kid. Yeah?" He nods, taking her hand, but it doesn't seem so important to him.

"When did you get here?" She coughs, glancing down, embarrassed by being upset.  
"I found you, son. Lying on the ground like that…God sakes. I couldn't…" She coughs again. "Anyway that was about two hours ago. You must have got a fair knock, hey honey?" He laughs a little and she does too but her eyes fill with tears.  
"My boy" she mouths reaching up to stroke his hair.

He avoids her gaze now, his eyes searching the beeping machines beside him, looking for a pattern to the sound and glancing at the bandages that travel the who way up his arm. His head spins. His phone and wallet are thrown carelessly on the bedside beside him, taken from his pocket when he was wheeled in, all white and red, and his mom follows his gaze.

"You want me to ring anyone for you baby?" she offers softly smiling faintly and he knows what she's thinking. He knows who could help him, he had always made him smile.  
He opens his mouth but all she gets is silence. Does he? All he wants in the world is to hear her voice or better still, wrap his arms around her slight poised waist; her figure curling up beside him; her long legs slung over his; her raven hair brushing his neck.

_Don't listen to his words Ryder_. She used to tell him seriously. _They're_ poison. _As far as I'm concerned, he's not even your father. You got a mom and your father died when you were six months old okay? That's what you tell people from now on. He's _poison_, but you'll be okay. You got your mom. You got your sister. You got your voice and your guitar and your ambition. You'll be okay._  
_And you,_ he had added and she had felt her grin against his shoulder.

He can imagine it now, he'll ring Jade and her voice will be muted and hushed, guilty for hurting him, but her words will be callous and indifferent trying to act like she's not. And he'll tell her what his father did and she won't reply, won't reply, won't reply. Shocked to silence. And enraged. She'll just hang up and drive here, much too fast, so he'll worry when she rushes in only ten minutes later.

Her expression will be terrified and distraught but the minute she sees his face she'll shut down. No tears, no screaming. She'll walk silently to his bedside and softly put her hand on his chest and he'll sigh in ease, like he always does when she enters a room. "I'm fine don't worry Jayjay, it's okay." He'll say noticing her dangerous expression. And her eyes will flash and she whispers "No you're not" so maliciously that he'll sit up and take her hand even when she tries to pull away.

She'll sit there on the hard wooden chair beside his bed all day, and maybe all night, quizzing each doctor who walked in the door for updates, getting mad at the ones who won't elaborate, making Ryder have to grab her arm to stop her yanking out their hair and promise her that he's fine, over and over.

It'll be about 3a.m. when his mom's gone home or gone to the canteen to eat, and a nurse hasn't checked on him in a while, when Jade'll eventually break down, in exhaustion, in the dimness and lean over his bed, crying over his stomach, her head in his hands, hysterical. He'll be so tired and no matter how many times he feebly tells her it's okay, she cries harder because she tells him it's not, it's not. She moans that she's sorry. That it was her fault that this happened, if only she never broke up with him he would not be broken and covered in blood right now, and she's sorry she's sorry she's sorry.

Until he breaks through his fatigue enough to grab her arms and turn her to face his and bark at her to stop it. That if she even thinks about blaming herself he'll never speak to her again. It would be dark and he'd stare into her vulnerable tear-streaked face, her senseless eyes and he'd lean forward and….maybe. Maybe.

"Baby?" his mom presses and his eyes look back into hers. Maybe not.

A flashback jumps into his head of one time, maybe three years ago now?  
Jade burst through his door painted red by his mom and stood stupidly in the entrance, looking flustered. "Ryder?" He was sitting on the stairs, not two minutes in the door and staring up at her.  
"Hey." His voice was flat and she looked annoyed.  
"What was that?" she demanded like he hadn't spoken. He acted dumb.  
"What?" She rolled her eyes and dropped her shoulder bag at her feet, moving to kneel in front of Ryder.

"Uh… you just stormed out of Music and left school? What the hell happened?" He sighed.  
"Nothing! It's just school isn't it? I'm sick of it." _She_ sighed then.  
"Cut the crap Ryder. What happened?" And because Ryder, much to his disappointment could never bottle _anything_ up inside, he had looked down at her hands and shrugging, muttered:  
"Dad's thinking of taking me out of school. He texted me just there, telling me it's definite. I'm going to public school." Jade blinked stupidly.  
"Leave… Hollywood Arts?" Like she couldn't understand. "Why? You're amazing here. What about your music?"

Despite her shocked fiery expression he couldn't help smile at the compliment, Jade so rarely gave away. He nodded.  
"It costs Jade." Because even though her father was far from the doting loving dad she wanted, he still paid for her tuition because, unlike his, he was still open to bettering their relationship.  
"And there's the fact that I'm not a doctor. Or that he hates the Arts with his life. Reason enough?" He smiled at her tragically helpless expression and took pity. She looked so lost.  
"It's cool Jade." With that she threw her hands back, holding her head and pushed her hair back furiously.  
"_No!_ Shut _up_, stop being so… so _passive_ about everything! It's _not_ cool!"  
"Jade-"  
"_I'll_ talk to him! Or I'll get my dad to-"  
"To _what?_ He hates me."

She stops and puts her hands to her face in frustration. There was a silence. And then Ryder spoke tentatively.  
"Jade. I …heard a rumour the last day. About you."  
"It's not true." She muttered from behind her hands, more out of reflex than anything. Girls with rumours was a pet hate of hers.  
"No? Then… then your dad didn't leave then?" Her body went rigid and he stared at her hands that still covered her face. Her pulled one down to see her expression.  
"Jade?"

"Oh... _that._" She whispered. "Yeah that's true." She didn't meet his gaze. It was his turn to rub his palm across his jaw.  
"Fuck." He muttered. "Jade –"  
"It's fine." She mumbled. Her eyes still locked on his knees. "Was gonna happen sooner or later." He left his seat of the stair step and dropped down on his knees beside Jade.  
"You didn't tell me." She bit her lip.  
"I'd didn't feel like announcing it." He nodded. Then it would be real, of course.

"I should've been with you. " She shook her head.  
"It's okay. I was with a friend. He took me out. I was okay." She reassured in monotone.  
"Who?" She looked up to him now, and with a certain brightness said:  
"Beck. Beck, Oliver? You know, the guy in my theatre class? Always wears plaid?" Her smile lifts a little in a memory or maybe the fact that he lived in plaid amused her. He nods slowly.

"Yeah, I think. The guy with the long hair? The actor?" 'Cause Beck was already pretty talked about for his performance in the end of year play.  
"That's him. We went to a carnival –"  
"A carnival?" His voice became incredulous because if there's one thing Jade West always hated…  
She smiled in response and laughed once.  
"Yeah, I know. It was…really dumb. He made me a ride a fucking merry-go-round" confessed Jade.

She laughed louder this time and he joined her, relieved she wasn't crying at least. She seemed brighter that he would have thought after her dad just walked out. She seemed like she would cope. Though he knew of course, one laugh wouldn't fix her.  
She shook her head and closed her eyes in reaction to the memory.

"He's such a…" She laughed again. "I don't know. But we had a good day. "She looked to Ryder again who's smile was contagious.  
"I'm glad." He grinned. "He's a good friend?" She doesn't look away this time.  
"Yeah." She seemed so… happy. Rare for Jade. For a long time she was so…

She would be okay, he knew. Just from that one look of contentedness. She'd get support from his boy… who apparently liked to take her to stupid places, she'd ordinarily hate. He had cunning, Ryder acknowledged, he knew what would make her laugh, even a week later sitting on the hallway floor with a friend. even due to the desertification of a father.  
And he in turn was promised that she'd keep him in Hollywood arts whether it killed her. And she did. All it took was a little blackmail and his mom's persuasive tone and his father reluctantly signed the next HA cheque that came in the post.

But he couldn't quite shake the memory that it was _Beck_ that saved her. That _saved_ her. At the time he was grateful.

He looks back to his mom and then looks down at his hands and quietly answered:  
"No mom. Leave it, it's okay. There's no one I need to tell."

He didn't have her anymore. He didn't think he ever _had_ her. Maybe he'd have to face that she would always belong to Beck, no matter how in love with her he was.

And anyway, maybe his dad was right. Maybe she'd already forgotten him.


End file.
